By Eric Tucker | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A man who authorities said surveilled Donald Trump for 12 hours at his Florida golf course and wrote about wanting to kill him was charged Tuesday with attempted murder.
Ryan Wesley Routh was originally charged with two federal firearms offenses. The enhanced charges in a five-count indictment reflect the Justice Department’s assessment that he methodically plotted to kill the Republican nominee, pointing a rifle through the bushes surrounding Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach one afternoon when Trump was playing there. Routh left behind a note describing his intent, prosecutors said.
Court documents show the case was assigned to Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointed federal judge who has drawn scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. She dismissed that case in July, a decision that is now under appeal by special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
The attempted murder charge was announced at a court hearing Monday in which prosecutors successfully argued that Routh, 58, would remain behind bars because he is a flight risk and a threat to public safety.
They said he wrote a handwritten note about his plan to kill Trump months before his Sept. 15 arrest, calling his actions a failed “attempt to assassinate Donald Trump” and offering $150,000 to anyone who could “finish the job.” The note was in a box that Routh apparently left at the home of an unidentified witness months before his arrest.
The person opened the letter, took a photo of the first page of the letter, wrote “Dear World” and contacted law enforcement after the assassination attempt.
Prosecutors also said Routh kept in his car a handwritten list of places where Trump appeared or was supposed to appear in August, September and October.
The charge of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate carries a possible life sentence if convicted. Other charges include assaulting a federal officer, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and the two original weapons charges he faced last week.
The shooting was foiled when a member of Trump’s Secret Service spotted a man’s face partially obscured and the barrel of a rifle protruding from the fence of the golf course outside where Trump was playing. The agent fired at Routh, who fled and was arrested by law enforcement in a neighboring county.
Routh did not fire any shots and did not have Trump in his line of sight, officials said, but he left behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food.
The arrest comes two months after Donald Trump was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has acknowledged procedural failures leading up to the shooting, but said security services did their jobs as they should have to thwart a possible attack in Florida.
The initial charges against Routh in a criminal complaint accused him of illegally possessing his gun despite multiple felony convictions and possessing a firearm with the serial number defaced. It is common for prosecutors to bring preliminary, easily provable charges at the time of an arrest, then add more serious offenses later as the investigation unfolds.
The FBI initially said it was investigating the incident as an apparent assassination attempt, but the lack of immediate charges in that regard opened the door for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to announce his own statewide investigation that he said could produce more serious charges.
Seeking to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the investigation and the Justice Department more broadly, Trump complained Monday — before the attempted assassination charge was brought — that federal prosecutors were “mishandling and minimizing” the case by bringing charges that were a “slap on the wrist.”
Asked at a news conference unrelated to Trump’s criticism on Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would “spare no resources to ensure accountability” in the case.
“Our top priority must be ensuring accountability in this case and ensuring that the candidates and their families are safe and protected,” Garland said.
The Justice Department also said Monday that authorities who searched Routh’s car found six cellphones, including one that displayed a Google search for directions from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
A notebook found in his car was filled with criticism of the Russian and Chinese governments and notes on how to join the war on behalf of Ukraine.
Prosecutors also cited a book Routh wrote last year in which he lambasted Trump’s approach to foreign policy, including Ukraine. In it, he wrote that Iran was “free to assassinate Trump” for leaving the nuclear deal.
Associated Press journalists Alanna Durkin Richer and Curt Anderson contributed to this report.
