Ryan Routh speaks during an interview at a rally on April 27, 2022. Ryan Routh has been charged with the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, following a Sept. 15 incident at Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla. golf course.
Nicolas Garcia / AFPTV/AFP/Getty Images
MIAMI — Ryan Routh has been charged with the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, following a Sept. 15 incident at Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla. golf course.
A Miami grand jury returned the indictment late Tuesday. The indictment adds three new counts to the weapons charges Routh is currently being held on. In addition to attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, he's charged with possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and assaulting a federal officer— the Secret Service agent who discovered him lurking in the tree line at former President Trump's West Palm Beach Golf Club earlier this month.
The attempted assassination charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Routh had already been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and the obliteration of a gun’s serial number.
"Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable for the attempted assassination of former President Trump charged in the indictment," said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In a court filing and hearing Monday, authorities said Routh's cell phone records show he had waited outside the fence line of Trump's golf course for nearly 12 hours on Sept. 15. As Trump was playing, a Secret Service agent doing a security sweep a hole ahead of the Republican presidential nominee, spotted the barrel of a rifle pointing in the agent's direction. The agent opened fire and prosecutors allege Routh fled and was captured on a nearby interstate. Authorities say Routh never fired the weapon.
Investigators later determined that Routh allegedly arrived in Florida a month before the incident and, based on cell phone records, had spent time casing both the golf course and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. Prosecutors also revealed a letter Routh had apparently written months before saying he wanted to assassinate Donald Trump.
The case has been assigned to federal judge Aileen Cannon who was appointed to the bench during the Trump Administration. She is the same judge overseeing the former President’s Mar-a-Lago classified documents trial brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. She dismissed the case– following several rulings where she’s received widespread criticism. The Special Counsel has appealed her decision.
Cannon’s appointment to the Routh case was done at random.
Earlier in the week, Donald Trump complained that the federal government should not be in charge of Routh's prosecution because of other pending federal cases brought against the former president. He asked that the state of Florida should lead the prosecution – something that Governor Ron DeSantis called for last week during a news conference saying the federal government had a conflict of interest.
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