By Adam Goldman and Glenn Thrush
The man arrested near Donald Trump’s golf course in Florida first approached the perimeter fence near the sixth hole about 12 hours before the former president would have teed off there, according to data retrieved from the man’s cellphone. But officials say the suspect never had Trump in his sights.
The defendant, Ryan W. Routh, 58, did not get a shot off Sunday, the agency’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, said at a news conference. Instead, agents opened fire on him, preventing what officials have described as an apparent assassination attempt by someone with a lengthy criminal record who discussed the morality of assassination in a self-published book.
Here’s what we’re covering:
— The charges: Routh made a first appearance Monday in federal court, where he faced charges of possessing a firearm as a felon, which carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. The FBI’s top agent in Miami said the bureau had no information that Routh had been working with anybody else.
— The suspect: In a rambling online screed titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” Routh last year called the former president a “buffoon” and several other insults. In one angry passage about the dismantling of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, the author appears to suggest that Iran, and perhaps readers, were “free to assassinate Trump.”
— The weapon: Cellphone data indicated that Routh first entered the woods near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, nearly half a day before a Secret Service agent spotted what appeared to be the barrel of a rifle. The complaint detailed the subsequent discovery of a loaded SKS-style rifle — a semi-automatic developed by the Soviets in the 1940s — with a scope, as well as food and a digital camera.
— Assigning blame: The episode cast fresh doubts on the Secret Service’s protective abilities after an apparent would-be killer got close to Trump for the second time in about two months. President Joe Biden told reporters Monday that the Secret Service “needs more help,” while Trump blamed what he called Democrats’ “inflammatory language” for the episode, even as he called them the “enemy from within.” Speaking via livestream on social media Monday night, Trump offered his first public description of the events Sunday, saying that he heard shots in the distance and was then grabbed and moved by Secret Service agents. “I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” he said.
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