Washington — The FBI said Monday that a man had been arrested in connection with the incident. An apparent assassination attempt Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump’s car was found to have contained a list of dates and locations where the former president had appeared or was expected to appear, and a cellphone found in his car showed a search result for directions from West Palm Beach to Mexico.
The FBI said in a filing that Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the case, left a handwritten letter to a man months ago addressed to “Dear World.” The letter read, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and it failed. I tried my best and did everything I could.”
Government Exhibition
Details are revealed in court documents in which federal prosecutors are requesting that Routh remain in custody until trial. Routh appeared before a federal judge on Monday for a pretrial detention hearing, during which he was denied bail and ordered to remain in jail. Federal prosecutors said in the filing: I plan to ask The grand jury returned a new indictment charging Ruth with attempted assassination of a politician, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Ruth already Charged with two federal firearms crimes After an apparent assassination attempt on Trump, the Secret Service said Trump was unharmed after agents found a man, identified as Ruth, with a rifle in the bushes along a fence line outside Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sept. 15.
According to federal officials, no shots were fired while Trump was on the golf course, but agents did shoot the suspect as he fled.
CBS News has reached out to Ruth’s attorney for comment.
Prosecutors said in a recent filing that the suspect was directly across the sixth green and Trump was playing on the fifth hole when Secret Service agents opened fire. Trump was quickly removed from the area after the shots were fired, according to the filing.
The FBI found an AK-47-style rifle with a scope attached and an extended magazine on the fence line. The gun was loaded with 11 rounds, and the serial number on the rifle was obliterated and unreadable, according to court documents. Prosecutors said Secret Service agents also found a digital camera, a backpack, and a reusable shopping bag hanging on the fence.
Government Exhibition
According to the documents, the backpack and shopping bag contained plates “capable of stopping rifle fire.”
Routh was arrested about 50 miles away after a witness at the golf course shared a description of the vehicle and license plate, according to prosecutors. During a search of the SUV, a Nissan Xterra, the FBI found additional license plates, six cell phones, 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in Routh’s name, and documents, according to court documents. The FBI said the SUV’s license plate was not registered to the vehicle.
According to prosecutors, one of the phones contained Google searches about how to travel from Palm Beach County, Florida, where Trump’s golf course is located, to Mexico. The documents included handwritten lists of dates in August, September and October and locations where Trump had appeared or was expected to go, according to court records.
Prosecutors said cell site records obtained by the FBI on two phones found in the vehicle showed the suspect traveling from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14. Court documents also say Routh’s cellphone accessed towers near the Trump International Golf Course and the former president’s South Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, on multiple days and hours between Aug. 18 and Sept. 15 (the day of the shooting).
Prosecutors said the FBI found a fingerprint matching Ruth’s on a piece of tape attached to a rifle recovered from a fence at Trump’s golf course.
Law enforcement officials said in the filing that on Sept. 18, three days after the alleged assassination attempt, they received information from a man who said Routh had dropped a box off at his home months earlier. According to prosecutors, the man said he learned of the incident on Sept. 15 and opened the box, which contained ammunition, metal pipe, building materials, tools, four phones and several letters.
Prosecutors noted in their motion that Routh was convicted in December 2002 of possession of a weapon of mass destruction, a felony. He was also convicted in March 2010 of several felony counts of possession of stolen property.
The incident outside Trump’s South Florida golf course has heightened scrutiny over the former president’s protection and comes just weeks after he was injured. Assassination attempt at rally In Butler, Pennsylvania.
The gunman, Thomas Matthew CrooksA gunman opened fire on the roof of a building near where Trump was speaking. The former president was shot in the ear and two others were wounded. Another rally attendee was killed.
The attack sparked widespread criticism of the Secret Service and raised questions about how Crooks gained access to the rooftop so close to where Trump was speaking.
Internal Review of Secret Service Shootings Found there The cause was a combination of multiple communication issues with law enforcement on the ground and a “lack of due diligence” by the Secret Service.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Lowe said Friday that President Trump is receiving “the highest level” of protection and praised agents for their work in thwarting another attack on the former president.
“There was no shooting of the former president. There was no exposure of where the former president was on the golf course,” he said of the incident earlier this month. “The procedures are working, the redundancies are working, so there is a high level of protection.”
