Trump suspect Ryan Routh stalked golf course for 12 hours

Trump stalker Ryan Routh may have been lying in wait for the former president for more than 11 hours at the Florida golf course where Donald Trump was playing.

And the high-power rifle Routh had with him may have been purchased overseas.

The new details emerged in the document filed Monday charging Routh, 58, with gun crimes in connection with the incident. Sunday’s incident is the second such attempt on Trump’s life in the past three months. 

Officials found that the loaded SKS-style 7.62×39 caliber rifle had a serial number that ‘was obliterated and unreadable to the naked eye.’ 

The agent who wrote the complaint said that such rifles are not manufactured in Florida, and it’s likely the rifle had ‘traveled in interstate or foreign commerce.’ 

Meanwhile, cell phone location data obtained by the FBI indicates that Routh ‘was located in the vicinity of the area of the tree line’ at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach from just before 2:00 a.m. Sunday until about 1:30 p.m.

That is about when a Secret Service agent, who was checking the course ahead of Trump, spotted a gun muzzle protruding from a nearby fence and fired at Routh. Trump was quickly evacuated. 

The details suggest some level of advance planning by Routh. Additionally, the fact he spent about 12 hours around the golf course without discovery has raised questions about the Secret Service’s protective procedures. 

Officials said Routh was on the public side of the Trump golf course’s perimeter fence when the agent spotted the rifle’s muzzle. 

Law enforcement is still investigating all the details, including where the suspect got the AK-style rifle, his movements ahead of the incident and if anyone else was involved. 

It’s unclear where Routh may have parked and waited for the former president, who is known to play golf regularly at his West Palm Beach club when at his Mar-a-Lago home nearby. 

Local police have increased security around the golf club, including closing down the road that leads to it to all but local traffic. 

At the time the agent spotted the gun on Sunday, Trump was on the fifth hole of his Palm Beach golf club. The agent was on the sixth hole, doing a visual sweep ahead of the former president, when he spotted the muzzle of the rifle. 

Routh was less than 500 yards from Trump when he was captured. 

Secret Service Acting Director Ron Rowe said on Monday that Routh was not able to get off a single shot and never had Trump in his ‘line of sight.’ 

‘As former President Trump was moving through the fifth fairway, across the course and out of sight of the sixth green, the agent, who was visually sweeping the area of the sixth green, saw the subject armed with what he perceived to be a rifle and immediately discharged his firearm,’ he noted. 

The Secret Service came under criticism for not securing a wide enough perimeter around Trump at his July 13th rally in Butler, Pa., where Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate the former president.

But, Rowe noted, the agency had a security plan in place for Trump’s golf game, which he said was unscheduled.  

‘We put together a security plan, and that security plan worked,’ he said Monday at a press conference.

In the area of the tree line where Routh fled, agents found a digital camera, two bags, a loaded SKS-style 7.62×39 caliber rifle with a scope, and a black plastic bag containing food. 

On Sunday, after the Secret Service fired and Routh fled, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office began a vehicle stop and Routh was detained at 2:14 p.m. Officers said the license plate of the Nissan he was in was registered to a 2012 white Ford truck that has been reported stolen. 

Ryan was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. 

Investigators are trying to restore the serial number so they could trace its origins.

He did not appear to fire the gun, law enforcement noted. Apparently the only shots fired were from Secret Service. Even if Routh did not fire the weapon, he could still face an attempted assassination charge.

‘We are investigating this matter as an apparent assassination attempt of Former President Trump,’ FBI special agent Jeffrey Veltri of the Miami field office said Monday afternoon at a press conference. 

The Secret Service later discovered a rifle, a backpack and a GoPro video camera attached to the fence near where Routh was spotted.

Routh appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach for a brief hearing Monday morning wearing a blue jail jumpsuit. 

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe ordered Routh held without bond until a detention hearing scheduled for Sept. 23. 

Routh has a lengthy criminal record in North Carolina, including a felony conviction for possession of a weapon of mass destruction and multiple felony counts of possession of stolen goods.

He also has ties to Hawaii. where he worked in construction and ran a group building housing for the homeless.

He was deeply involved in efforts to recruit soldiers for the fight against Russia in the Ukraine. He traveled to Ukraine in 2022 and later wrote a book: ‘Ukraine’s Unwinnable War.’ 

Video shot by the AP showed Routh at a small demonstration in Kyiv’s Independence Square in April 2022, two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of the country. 

In the self-published book, which is available on Amazon, Routh was highly critical of Trump and even encouraged Iran to assassinate him.

‘You are free to assassinate Trump,’ Routh wrote of Iran. 

Routh, who was active on social media, said he voted for Trump in 2016 but,  in a post from June 2020, was critical of him.

‘I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate,’ he wrote. ‘I will be glad when you [sic] gone.’

He also seemed to be no fan of President Joe Biden. 

‘Sleepy Joe stands for nothing, no plans, no ideas,’ he wrote in one X post from March 5, 2020.