The man suspected in an assassination attempt against Donald Trump appears to have been in the area around the former president’s golf course for 12 hours before a Secret Service agent spotted his rifle and opened fire, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed in Florida on Monday.
A Secret Service agent protecting Trump, the Republican nominee in the November election, saw a gun poking out of the tree line near where Trump was golfing and fired in that direction.
Law enforcement officials, according to the complaint, suspect the man wielding that weapon was 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh. Routh fled the scene and left behind his phone, his loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and some food, according to the complaint.
Law enforcement officials found Routh’s cellphone number in one of his Facebook posts and were able to quickly track his phone data, which suggested he could have been hiding in the bushes from around 2 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m., when the Secret Service saw him, the complaint said.
Routh appeared before a judge in federal court in Florida on Monday morning as officials charged him with two crimes: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
The obliterated serial number makes it harder for authorities to track the weapon and could mean a slower process to determine how Routh obtained it. The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint said the type of weapon Routh had is not manufactured in Florida, and the agent suspects it was obtained from another state or abroad.
Routh is expected to enter his plea of guilty or not guilty at his arraignment Sept. 30.
Federal law enforcement officials have not released a motive, but they have said they are investigating the incident as a possible assassination attempt.
While the initial charges against Routh do not accuse him of trying to kill Trump, the ongoing investigation could result in additional charges.
If the case is determined to be an attempted assassination, it would be the second one on Trump in about two months. On July 13, a man shot and injured Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. The Secret Service shot and killed the gunman.
Routh is not suspected to have fired a shot on Sunday, and was uninjured by the Secret Service agent who shot at him.
A witness saw Routh fleeing Trump’s golf course, the complaint states. About 45 minutes after that, local law enforcement pulled Routh over as he was speeding north along Interstate 95.
When officers pulled him over, they asked if he understood why he was being stopped, according to the complaint. Routh allegedly responded that he understood.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told local station WPEC on Monday that when his deputies spotted Routh driving along I-95, “he was smart, he was just driving with the Florida traffic. I think he may have thought he got away with it.”
Synder said the case raises questions that federal authorities will have to answer.
“How does a guy from not here get all the way to Trump International, realize that the former president is golfing and is able to get a rifle in that vicinity?” the sheriff said. “Is this guy part of a conspiracy? Is he a lone gunman? … If he’s part of a conspiracy then this whole thing really takes on a very ominous tone.”
According to the complaint, the license plate affixed to Routh’s Nissan is registered to a “2012 white Ford truck and has been reported stolen.”
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Perry Stein, Devlin Barrett, Mark Berman
