Florida.- The man who authorities say pointed a scoped rifle at former President Donald Trump at his Palm Beach golf course has been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh.
Secret Service agents shot the suspect, who was arrested after fleeing the scene of what the FBI is calling an apparent assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate. Authorities are working to determine a motive.
Records show that Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Kaaawa, Hawaii, in 2018. There, he and his son operated a shed-building company, according to an archived version of the company’s website. Routh tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine and spent several months in the country, according to an interview with The New York Times last year.
He told the newspaper that dozens of potential Afghan recruits have expressed interest in fighting and that he hoped to buy passports for them in Pakistan.
Routh was convicted in 2002 of possession of a weapon of mass destruction, according to online records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections. The records do not provide details about the case. However, a News & Record article from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. The records say he was pulled over during a traffic stop, put his hand on a gun and barricaded himself inside a roofing business. Routh was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a weapon of mass destruction, “referring to a fully automatic machine gun,” according to the News & Record. Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website attempting to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to kyiv and join the fight against the Russian invasion. A photo of Routh posted on the website shows him smiling, wearing a T-shirt and jacket emblazoned with American flags. In June 2020, she made a post on X calling on then-President Trump to win re-election by issuing an executive order directing the Department of Justice to prosecute police misconduct. That year, she also posted in support of the Democratic presidential campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has since switched her support to Trump. However, in recent years, her posts appear to have shied away from Trump, expressing support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris instead. In July, following the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those injured in the shooting in the hospital and attend the funeral of a firefighter killed at the rally. “Trump will never do anything for them… show the world what compassion and humanity means,” read a post on Routh’s feed, seemingly addressing Harris. Voter registration records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, and most recently voted in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Routh also made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates, according to federal campaign finance records.
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