Left: Ryan Wesley Routh (Law&Crime). Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: Donald Trump speaks at the annual Road to Majority conference in Washington, DC, in June 2024 (Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via AP).
Months after she threw out Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago classified documents prosecution, a decision special counsel Jack Smith is actively appealing, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has a major new assignment: the case of alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh.
After the revelations of a letter addressed to the “world” that read “[t]his was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” Routh, 58, was indicted Tuesday for attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, stemming from his Sept. 15 arrest.
A magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered Routh detained pretrial for “numerous factors,” including that he is known to have traveled to Ukraine and Taiwan, the “weight of the evidence” against him, and his 2002 felony conviction for possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction — one of the felony convictions that led to the gun charges he faces — and his “lengthy criminal history” as a whole “with over a hundred arrests.”
The magistrate recounted that 10 days ago Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in Florida in the afternoon when a Secret Service agent spotted the defendant “in the exterior brush along the fence line near the 6th hole putting green,” one hole on the course beyond where Trump was.
Left: Donald Trump playing golf at Turnberry golf course during his visit to the UK in May 2023. (Press Association via AP Images). Right: Ryan Routh speaks about what he was doing in Ukraine (Newsweek Romania).
“The Agent also observed the barrel of a rifle protruding from the fence and aimed directly at him. The Agent fired his weapon several times towards the rifle, then announced over his radio that shots had been fired. Shortly after the Agent fired his weapon, a civilian driving on Summit Boulevard observed a man run across the road away from Trump International, get into a Nissan Xterra, and flee the area at a high rate of speed,” the magistrate said.
When Routh was caught under an hour later, his vehicle allegedly had evidence of his tracking Trump’s appearances and evidence that he may have been considering fleeing to Mexico.
“A search of the Nissan Xterra later revealed, among other things, six cellphones, two additional license plates, Defendant’s passport, and a handwritten list of dates and venues in August, September, and October of 2024 where the former President had appeared or was expected to appear,” the magistrate added. “Furthermore, one of the cell phones contained a Google search for how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.”
Routh was ordered detained as a result.
“Based on the evidence, the Court finds there are no conditions or combinations of conditions that would reasonably assure the Defendant’s appearance as required or the safety of the community if the Defendant were to be released prior to trial,” the magistrate wrote. “The Court bases this conclusion on numerous factors, including the nature of the current charges, the nature of additional charges that might be added, the weight of the evidence, the Defendant’s prior criminal history involving a conviction for possession of a weapon of mass destruction, and the Defendant’s recent travel to foreign countries.”
The defendant was also assigned Cannon as his judge as he faces up to life behind bars upon conviction.
Routh was initially accused of possessing a firearm while a convicted felon and for possessing a gun with an “obliterated serial number,” offenses punishable by up to 15 years and 5 years respectively upon conviction.
In another twist, just this week the defendant’s own son, Oran Routh, was hit with child pornography possession charges as the feds investigated the attempted assassination case.
Oran Routh (Guilford County Sheriff’s Office).
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