Suspect camped his spot

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The man suspected in an apparent assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump camped outside a golf course with food and a rifle for almost 12 hours, lying in wait for the former president before a Secret Service agent thwarted the potential attack and opened fire, according to court documents filed Monday. Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, faces charges of possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

He did not fire any shots and never had Trump in his line of sight, the Secret Service's acting chief said. Routh appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach, starting a criminal case in the final weeks of a presidential race already touched by violence and upheaval. Though no one was injured, the episode marked the second attempt on Trump's life in as many months.



It prompted Republican allies and even some Democrats to demand to know how a would-be shooter could get so close. Routh was arrested Sunday afternoon after authorities spotted a firearm poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump played. He was spotted by a Secret Service agent assigned to Trump's security detail who opened fire.

Routh sped away before being captured by law enforcement in a neighboring county, the authorities said. Underscoring the level of planning involved, Routh is believed to have been positioned at the tree line of the golf course from 1:59 a.m.

to 1:31 p.m. on Sunday, according to an FBI affidavit that cites cellphone data.

A digital camera, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food were recovered from the area where Routh was standing, according to the affidavit. Coming just weeks after a July shooting at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in which Trump was wounded by a gunman's bullet, the latest assassination attempt accelerated concerns that violence continues to infect American presidential politics. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's challenger in the November election, denounced the thwarted attack, with Harris saying in a post on social media: "I am glad he is safe.

Violence has no place in America." "We will work tirelessly to ensure accountability, and we will bring every available resource to bear in this investigation," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Meanwhile, Trump claimed without evidence Monday that Biden and Harris' comments that he is a threat to democracy inspired the latest apparent attempt on his life, despite his own long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies.

"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 in comments to Fox News Digital. Trump has talked about prosecuting his political rivals and alleged without evidence that Democrats brought the felony cases against him for political reasons. In a post on his social media site on Monday, Trump again claimed that he had been the target of politically motivated attacks, writing that the left "has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust.

" He said "it will only get worse" and then veered into comments about immigration, though there is no evidence the person arrested in connection with either apparent assassination attempt was an immigrant. Authorities did not immediately reveal any new details about Routh's background or allege a particular motive in charging documents. But his large online footprint suggests a man of evolving political viewpoints, culminating in an apparent disdain for Trump and intense outrage at global events concerning China and especially Ukraine.

One of the two counts he faces alleges that he illegally possessed his gun in spite of felony convictions, including two charges of possessing stolen goods in 2002 in North Carolina. The other charge alleges that the serial number was obliterated and unreadable to the naked eye, in violation of federal law. Routh was the subject of a previously closed 2019 tip to the FBI that alleged that he was a felon in possession of a firearm, said Jeffrey Veltri, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami's field office.

The FBI interviewed the tipster, who did not verify the initial information, Veltri said. The FBI passed that information to local law enforcement in Honolulu on behalf of the FBI. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.