Trump suspect Ryan Routh lay in wait for 12 hours

The gunman accused of trying to kill Donald Trump was hiding near a Florida golf course for 12 hours before a Secret Service agent spotted him.

Ryan Routh at a protest in Kyiv in May 2022. Picture: Reuters

The gunman acused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump was hiding near the former president’s Florida golf course for roughly 12 hours before a Secret Service agent spotted him and opened fire, prosecutors say.

Ryan Wesley Routh’s mobile phone records show he was near the perimeter of Mr Trump’s golf course from about 2am until 1.31pm, a criminal complaint filed against Routh said. At that time, the agent noticed the barrel of a rifle poking out of the tree line and fired at least four shots.

The details, revealed in the court document charging Routh with federal gun crimes, suggest some level of advance planning by the suspect, who had a long history of criminal convictions – including possession of a weapon “of mass death and destruction” – that would have barred him from owning a gun.

Routh, 58, appeared on Monday (Tuesday AEST) in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida. In addition to charges of possessing a firearm despite being a felon, he also was charged with having a firearm with a wiped-out serial number, a wrinkle that has made it difficult for law enforcement to determine how he acquired the gun. Investigators were trying to restore the serial number so they could trace it, an official familiar with the probe said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the incident as an assassination attempt, the second threat on Mr Trump’s life in as many months. Investigators have turned up no evidence that Routh had accomplices, said a senior FBI official, who noted the probe was in its early stages.

The close call comes as the American public is increasingly on edge amid growing threats of politically motivated violence ahead of November’s election. Evidence that the gunman went unnoticed near the premises for hours also raises fresh doubts about the Secret Service’s ability to protect both presidential candidates during such a volatile campaign season.

In July, the agency failed to stop a 20-year-old gunman from opening fire at Mr Trump from a rooftop during a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania. A spectator was killed, and Mr Trump was grazed by a bullet in the ear.

The back-to-back episodes have also spurred more calls to increase the former president’s security; officials have said the perimeter of the golf course would have been more tightly secured if Mr Trump were the sitting commander in chief.

“We put together a security plan, and that security plan worked,” acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe said.

On Monday, law-enforcement officials cordoned off a road next to the golf course’s fence line where the alleged shooter likely positioned himself. It is unclear where Routh might have parked and waited; the owner of a nearby petrol station said that police confiscated a hard drive containing several hours of surveillance footage on Sunday.

Authorities don’t think Routh fired a shot, officials said, but the Secret Service agent – who was one or two holes ahead of Trump on the course – spotted the rifle barrel in the tree line and fired. Routh had been roughly 400m away from the Republican presidential nominee, but didn’t have a direct line of sight to him, officials said. He sped off in a black Nissan Xterra but was captured soon after as he fled north on Interstate 95.

Authorities found the loaded semiautomatic SKS-style rifle with a scope and an unreadable serial number, two backpacks and a bag of food in the area where the suspect had been hiding near the course, according to the complaint. The SKS, which is similar to an AK-47, isn’t manufactured in Florida, according to the complaint, which says that means Routh would have had to bring it across state lines.

Investigators also found a GoPro portable video camera, suggesting Routh had planned to film himself during his planned attack.

Routh easily surrendered and told a sheriff’s deputy that he knew why he had been stopped, the document said. The licence plate on the Nissan was registered to a white 2012 Ford truck that had been reported stolen.

Investigators were trying to determine Routh’s motive, what he was doing in the days and weeks before the encounter, and how he knew Mr Trump would be on the golf course at that time.

“Our FBI agents attempted to interview him, and he invoked his right to an attorney,” said Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office.

Investigators are also examining Routh’s social-media accounts, which indicated he had a fixation with the war in Ukraine. Law-enforcement officials pointed to a now-suspended X account in which Routh espoused a muddle of political views. He said he voted for Mr Trump in 2016 but in a post from June 2020 was critical of him.

“I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate,” he wrote. “I will be glad when you [sic] gone.” In a book titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which he self-published in 2023, Routh elaborated that he was furious that Trump had withdrawn from the nuclear deal with Iran.

“I must take part of the blame for the retarded child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize,” he wrote. “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal.” He also seemed to be no fan of President Joe Biden. “Sleepy Joe stands for nothing, no plans, no ideas,” he wrote in one X post from March 5, 2020.

On Monday, Mr Trump said that the suspect was influenced by Democrats, many of whom have portrayed him as a threat to democracy. “He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump told Fox News Digital.

Both Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, Mr Trump’s Democratic rival for the White House, have said they were briefed on the apparent assassination attempt and condemned political violence. “We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more to violence,” Ms Harris said in a statement issued by the White House.

The Wall Street Journal