RYAN W Routh, the 58-year-old man suspected of planning to assassinate Donald Trump, has been charged with two gun-related crimes in federal court a day after being spotted with a rifle on the perimeter of the former United States president’s golf course in Florida.
Phone records suggest the suspect may have been lying in wait for nearly 12 hours, hiding in the bushes with a loaded SKS semi-automatic rifle, according to court documents filed on Monday.
Routh, who appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach, did not fire any shots and never had Trump in his line of sight, the Secret Service said.
“The FBI is conducting its investigation of this incident as an assassination attempt upon the former president,” the US Attorney for the Southen District of Florida, Markenzy Lapointe, told a press conference on Monday afternoon.
Routh was arrested on Sunday after allegedly fleeing the crime scene and is being held in custody on charges of illegally possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
US Secret Service agents stationed on the golf course ahead of Trump opened fire on the suspect after they noticed the muzzle of a rifle sticking through a fence that lines the course.
The gunman fled in an SUV, leaving behind the rifle, which was fitted with a scope, as well as two backpacks and a GoPro camera, according to police. The man was stopped soon after by heavily armed law enforcement officers on Interstate 95, a busy highway in a neighbouring county, and put up no resistance.
Police say the licence plate on his vehicle had been reported stolen from another car.
Trump is scheduled to unveil a new cryptocurrency business on X on Monday night at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, where he lives, before resuming his presidential campaign for events in Michigan on Tuesday and New York on Wednesday.
The incident has raised new questions about the violent nature of US politics and how an armed suspect was able to get so close to Trump, just two months after another gunman fired at him during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear with a bullet.
Trump’s personal schedule is not made public, so investigators will be trying to find out how the gunman knew of his golfing plans. However, the Republican presidential nominee is an ardent golfer and it is no secret that he likes to fit in a round whenever he is visiting his Florida home.
