US to seek attempted assassination charge for Trump golf course suspect

WASHINGTON – The federal government will pursue a charge of attempted assassination against a man accused of lurking with a gun near where former US president Donald Trump was golfing in Florida last week, prosecutors said in a court hearing on Sept 23.

Among the government’s evidence, they said, was a note the suspect had written suggesting that he had planned the attack.

Such a charge – which prosecutors said they would seek through a grand jury indictment – would carry a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment.

US Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe, of the US District Court in West Palm Beach, Florida, granted the government’s request on Sept 23 to keep the suspect, Ryan Routh, in jail without bond.

So far, Routh has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm as a felon, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, and with possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Routh’s defence lawyers had argued that their client was not a flight risk and did not pose a serious threat to the community, but Judge McCabe disagreed.

In a statement released by his campaign on Sept 23, Republican presidential candidate Trump accused the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of “mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July”. He called the charges against Routh “a slap on the wrist” and said: “Let Florida handle the case.”

Last week, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, said the state would conduct its own investigation into what happened, characterising the federal inquiry as insufficiently transparent and perhaps biased against Trump.

At the court hearing on Sept 23, which lasted nearly three hours, Mr Mark Dispoto, an assistant US attorney, argued that Routh had ensconced himself in “nothing short of a sniper’s nest” to target Trump, while Routh’s federal public defenders extensively questioned the strength of the government’s evidence.

Ms Kristy Militello, one of his two lawyers, said Routh’s actions were the “unsophisticated and sort of untrained” work of a man whose writings suggested that he intended the assassination attempt to fail.

Routh, wearing a dark jail uniform with his blond hair combed back, appeared to closely follow the proceedings, especially when Ms Renee Michelle Sihvola, his other lawyer, cross-examined FBI special agent Christian Hull about the government’s evidence.

According to prosecutors, Routh, 58, appeared to have surveyed the grounds of the Trump International Golf Club for about a month before his arrest.

On Sept 15, Routh positioned himself outside the fence near the sixth hole of the course, where at about 1.30pm, a Secret Service agent on a golf cart who was scouting one hole ahead of the former president saw part of Routh’s face and the barrel of his gun.

At the time he was spotted, prosecutors said, Routh was aligned directly with the sixth hole, with the intention of shooting Trump from a relatively short distance using a semi-automatic rifle. The rifle, equipped with a scope, was found abandoned at the scene; it had a round in the chamber and a total of 11 rounds loaded. Investigators found Routh’s fingerprint on duct tape affixing the scope to the weapon.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” Routh wrote in a note that was placed inside a box that he left at a friend’s house in North Carolina, according to prosecutors.

“I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” the note continued. “It is up to you to finish the job; and I will offer US$150,000 to whoever can complete the job.”

The friend contacted law enforcement officials and told them about the note three days after Routh’s arrest.

In the note, prosecutors said, Routh also wrote that Trump was unfit to be president. Routh had left the note at the house several months before the shooting – an indication, they said, that he had been planning the assassination for a long time.

Ms Sihvola got Mr Hull, the FBI agent, to identify multiple references in the note to Routh’s belief that his plan would likely fail; those references were in parts of the note that prosecutors had not included in their memo asking the judge to detain Routh indefinitely.

Mr Hull also acknowledged under questioning by Ms Sihvola that he was not aware of any footage from surveillance or other cameras showing Routh at the golf course or with the rifle.

Mr Hull also disclosed that another handwritten note had been found perhaps 4.5m from the rifle. That note, he said, was addressed to The New York Times.

Mr Dispoto called the second note “ancillary” and pointed out that it was not part of the government’s filing. Routh was interviewed by the Times in 2023 about his efforts to recruit foreigners to fight in Ukraine.

The developments on Sept 23 painted the clearest picture to date of an itinerant and impoverished building contractor, with no apparent ties to Florida, who repeatedly professed his willingness to die defending Ukraine.

Routh’s lawyers portrayed their client as dedicated to the cause of democracy in Ukraine and Taiwan, and added that, even after his arrest, he has the support of his adult children and siblings. He lived with a partner in Hawaii for the past eight years and spent “the better half of the past decade”, Ms Militello said, “as a law-abiding citizen”.

Prosecutors noted Routh’s extensive criminal history, including a 2002 felony charge in North Carolina over possessing a weapon of mass death and destruction. Court documents described the weapon as a “binary explosive with a 10-inch detonation and a blasting cap”. Routh was convicted and placed on supervised probation for 60 months.

Investigators who searched the black Nissan Xterra SUV that Routh was driving on Sept 15 found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October 2024 and venues where the former president had appeared or was expected to be present”, according to the prosecutors’ memo.

Agents also found six cellphones – including one that contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico – as well as 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s licence in Routh’s name and a passport.

Judge McCabe cited the Google search and Routh’s passport as evidence of his potential flight risk, and his criminal record, his apparent staking out of the golf course and the seriousness of the existing firearms charges against him as evidence of his potential danger to the community.

“The government has met its burden” to warrant detention, Judge McCabe said. NYTIMES