Prosecutors claim alleged Trump gunman wrote letter detailing ‘assassination attempt’

Prosecutors claim alleged Trump gunman wrote letter detailing ‘assassination attempt’


Republican presidential nominee and former US president Donald Trump speaks during a “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America Event” in Washington, US on September 19, 2024. — Reuters

FLORIDA: The man accused of hiding out with a gun near Donald Trump’s Florida golf course in an apparent bid to kill the former president wrote a letter months earlier describing an “assassination attempt” and offering a bounty on Trump’s life, US prosecutors said on Monday.

Ryan Routh, 58, has been charged with two gun crimes after he allegedly pointed a rifle through the tree line on September 15 while the Republican presidential candidate was playing golf at his course in West Palm Beach, according to a criminal complaint.

He has not yet entered a plea.

Routh is due to appear at a hearing scheduled to begin at 11am EDT (1500 GMT) on Monday in which prosecutors where will ask a judge to keep him in jail until his trial.

In a court filing released before the hearing, prosecutors said that several months prior to the incident, Routh dropped off a handwritten letter addressed to “the world” that offered a bounty on Trump.

“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” the suspect wrote, according to the filing. “I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

The letter was found in a box handed over by an unidentified civilian witness that also included ammunition, a metal pipe and four phones, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also said that when Routh was arrested this month his car contained a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October of places where Trump had appeared or was expected to appear.

They said a search of his cellphone records showed that the devices had pinged towers near the Trump International golf course where the incident took place and by the “Mar-a-Lago” resort where Trump lives.

Routh has been charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More charges could follow.

Authorities have not yet divulged a motive for the incident, which the FBI has said is being investigated as an apparent attempted assassination of Trump ahead of the November 5 presidential election.

In a 2023 self-published book, Routh wrote that Iran was “free to assassinate Trump” for pulling the US out of an international nuclear deal with Teheran during his presidency.



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