Man arrested in apparent Trump assassination attempt faces gun charges
Federal prosecutors have brought charges related to improperly possessing a gun against Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested yesterday in Florida after apparently trying to open fire on Donald Trump while he was golfing, the Associated Press reports.
During his first appearance in federal court, prosecutors announced charges against Routh related to possessing a firearm as a felon and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number.
The hearing lasted about eight minutes, and the AP reports that Routh could face as much as 15 years in prison if convicted on the first charge, and up to five years in prison for the second.
Key events
Potential would-be Trump assassin spent nearly 12 hours in tree line of golf club
In the complaint, FBI special agent Mark A Thomas wrote that he learned from Ryan Wesley Routh’s mobile phone service provider that his device was around the tree line of Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, for nearly 12 hours.
A phone registered to Routh, who is facing federal gun charges over yesterday’s incident that the FBI has said may have been an assassination attempt, “was located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line … 1.59am until approximate 1.31pm on September 15, 2024”.
Suspect in potential Trump assassination attempt caught driving stolen car, traced to scene by cellphone data
Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested in Florida yesterday after a Secret Service agent saw a gun pointed at a golf course where Donald Trump was playing, was traced to the scene by cellphone data and driving a stolen car when he was apprehended, an FBI agent wrote in a criminal complaint.
Routh faces federal charges of being a felon in possession of a gun, and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number.
In the complaint, FBI special agent Mark A Thomas also said that Routh had been convicted in 2002 in North Carolina of possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction”, a felony.
Such weapons include fully automatic rifles, sawed-off shotguns, bombs, grenades and mines, according to the state’s laws.
CNN spoke to William Snyder, the sheriff of Martin county, Florida, whose deputies yesterday arrested Ryan Wesley Routh after he allegedly pointed a gun at the golf course where Donald Trump was playing.
Snyder told the network that Routh was so calm when deputies pulled him over that they wondered if they had the right man:
It was perplexing. You know, somebody who actually at the time we weren’t positive that we had the suspect. We had the vehicle. We thought we had him. But his facial affect was so flat. His demeanor was relaxed. I – I honestly thought it looked like somebody that just left the church picnic and was on his way home. And – and the interstate was crawling with law enforcement. We had, you know, the SWAT team had gotten out their rifles, helicopter, I-95 shut down, a bomb dog. Everything was there. And he was just calm as – as really as if he was going for dinner.
Over on Truth Social, his preferred social media platform these days, Donald Trump is fundraising off the apparent second attempt to assassinate him yesterday.
“FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!” the former president wrote in a post, repeating the words he uttered after a gunman attempted to kill him at a rally in Pennsylvania two months ago. A link in the post directs readers to a website where he solicits campaign donations, which reads:
FEAR NOT!
I am safe and well, and no one was hurt. Thank God!
But, there are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us.
I will not stop fighting for you.
I will Never Surrender!
I will always love you for supporting me.
Through our UNITY we will Make America Great Again!
Man arrested in apparent Trump assassination attempt faces gun charges
Federal prosecutors have brought charges related to improperly possessing a gun against Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested yesterday in Florida after apparently trying to open fire on Donald Trump while he was golfing, the Associated Press reports.
During his first appearance in federal court, prosecutors announced charges against Routh related to possessing a firearm as a felon and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number.
The hearing lasted about eight minutes, and the AP reports that Routh could face as much as 15 years in prison if convicted on the first charge, and up to five years in prison for the second.
Trump says Biden and Harris’s ‘rhetoric is causing me to be shot at’
Donald Trump has sought to blame Kamala Harris and Joe Biden for the second apparent assassination attempt targeting him, telling Fox News in an interview this morning that the Democrats have instigated violence by saying he was a threat to American democracy.
The comments came as the former president continues to insist, without evidence, that he won the 2020 election, and after a bipartisan congressional investigation found he engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to subvert the will of voters that culminated in his supporters’ attacking the Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Both Biden and Harris made warnings of Trump’s anti-democratic leanings a key part of their pitch to voters, but in the interview, the former president linked those to his attempted assassination in Pennsylvania in July, and to the apparent second attempt yesterday in Florida.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” Trump said. Speaking of Ryan Wesley Routh, the man accused of attempting the assassination, he added: “He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it.”
Referring to the president and vice-president, Trump said: “It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.”
Trump is awaiting trial in federal court on charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith over his attempt to block Biden from taking power in the weeks after the 2020 election:
The sheriff’s department who arrested Ryan Wesley Routh for allegedly planning to assassinate Donald Trump has released a photo of him from when he was taken into custody:
Republican House speaker Johnson demands Secret Service give Trump ‘every asset available’
In an interview on Fox News earlier this morning, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, called for the Secret Service to increase security resources deployed to protect Donald Trump.
“Today, President Trump needs the most coverage of anyone. He’s the most attacked. He’s the most threatened, even probably more than when he was in the Oval Office. So, we are demanding in the House that he have every asset available,” Johnson said.
He also said that the panel investigating Trump’s attempted assassination in Pennsylvania in July will be holding hearings and releasing a report next week:
There will be hearings, I think, not this week but next in our task force, and a report due by the end of that same week. And so more and more of these answers will be coming out, the final report due shortly thereafter. So good work is being done. There are some extraordinary members of Congress working on it around the clock, and we have to do that. It’s a top priority for the American people.
Here’s video of Joe Biden’s remarks on the Secret Service’s needs as he departed the White House:
After calling for more “help” for the Secret Service, Joe Biden said: “Congress should respond to their need.”
“They may decide whether they need more personnel or not,” the president added.
He also said this of Donald Trump: “Thank God the president is OK.”
Joe Biden is not alone in calling for the Secret Service to be beefed up in response to the two apparent attempted assassinations of Donald Trump.
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna made a similar demand following the shooting in Florida yesterday:
Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable. The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) September 16, 2024
Biden says Secret Service ‘needs more help’ after second Trump assassination attempt
Joe Biden called for the allocation of more resources to the Secret Service after Donald Trump was again targeted, unsuccessfully, by an assassin yesterday.
“The Service needs more help,” Biden told reporters as he departed the White House for Wilmington, Delaware.
Ronald Rowe, the acting director of the Secret Service, will be in Florida “indefinitely” as the investigation into yesterday’s potential attempted assassination of Donald Trump continues, CNN reports:
Acting US Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe plans to remain in Florida “indefinitely” as the investigation into an apparent second assassination attempt of Trump plays out, per spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi. @ZcohenCNN
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 16, 2024
Rowe became the agency’s head in late July, after director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the wake of the assassination attempt targeting Trump in Pennsylvania:
Kamala Harris is not scheduled to make any public appearances today.
She’s in Washington, DC, with a campaign meeting scheduled for the afternoon, but the press are not invited to that.
Joe Biden will be out and about, flying to Wilmington, Delaware, in the morning and staying for a few hours. The White House did not say what he will be doing there, but the city is the headquarters of Harris’s re-election campaign (which was once upon a time Biden’s re-election campaign).
The president then goes to Philadelphia, where he will speak at 2.30pm at a conference of historically Black colleges and universities, before returning to the White House.
Harris says ‘deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt’ on Trump
In a brief statement released yesterday evening, Kamala Harris, the vice-president who is competing for the presidency against Donald Trump in the November election, condemned the “possible assassination attempt” against him:
I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today. As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.
I am thankful that former President Trump is safe. I commend the US Secret Service and law enforcement partners for their vigilance. As President Biden said, our administration will ensure the Secret Service has every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to carry out its critical mission.
Voter records show the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.
Records show that while living in Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh had multiple run-ins with law enforcement. Associated Press reports a News & Record story from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. The story says he was pulled over during a traffic stop, put his hand on a gun and barricaded himself inside a roofing business. He owned the roofing company, according to state incorporation filings.
Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.
Trump to meet with acting secret service director – report
The Washington Post, citing a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, that Donald Trump plans to meet with the acting director of the secret service, Ronald Rowe Jr, on Monday.