Alleged would-be Donald Trump assasin Ryan Routh dissed the two major parties and asserted his political independece in a rambling jailhouse letter that he mailed to a journalist from his Miami prison.
‘A guard [in] Palm Beach asked jokingly if I was a democrat — I said, ‘NO — Independent — I vote for the best candidate,’ Routh wrote in a letter from a Florida jail cell where he is awaiting charges after allegedly being flushed from a Trump golf course after setting up a ‘sniper’s nest’ with a high-powered weapon.
It is one of several unusual passages in a four-page handwritten letter that arrived at the office of Politico in suburban Washington, addressed to legal affairs columnist Ankush Khardori.
Routh was born in North Carolina and moved to Hawaii, facing a string of criminal charges over the years. Authorities say a Secret Service Agent fired upon the suspect, Routh, after he was discovered lying in wait just outside Trump’s Florida golf course in September while the now president-elect was playing.
His letter, published weeks after an election that featured multiple runs by third-party candidates, features rants about the two-party system.
‘I am unclear how we allowed ourselves to fall into just a two-party system, but it infuriates me,’ writes Routh.
‘My entire life has been plagued by D’s and R’s. It seems not long ago there was a push for the libertarian party and now a green party and maybe Truth party. But for some reason our leaders have not allowed any other party [to] be recognized in any race.’
Ryan Wesley Routh following was arrested September 15 and is accused of planning to kill Donald Trump
Routh posted in the past that Trump was his ‘choice’ in 2016 but then soured on the former president. He wrote in 2020: ‘I will be glad when you are gone.’
Routh, who referred to himself as the ‘alleged shooter’, also went off on the ‘two ruling parties,’ complained about the growing national debt, and called for fixing the problem ‘balls out.’
He lamended ‘gridlock in Congress’ – a common complaint across the political spectrum, and called for public financing of campaings, an idea usually associated with the left.
‘We all wonder why we end up with such flawed candidates, when our system is designed to exclude most everyone,’ he wrote, during a campaign when polls showeed most Americans were unhappy with their options.
The bizarre letter comes during the transition before a Donald Trump second term
In the letter Routh makes a comparison bretween himself an Thomas Matthew Crooks, identified by the FBI as the shooter who fired on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania
Politico did not publish the entire article, but excerpts reveal he compared himself to Trump’s alleged Butler, Pennsylvania attempted assasin Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Routh said they were both ‘ready to die for freedom and democracy.’ The publication said the language ‘linked’ him to Crooks. Rought, who also called himself the ‘Trump Alleged Shooter’ has pleaded not guilty.’
One part of his letter delves into the Middle East. (Routh has also complained about difficulty trying to join foreign fighters seeking to join Ukraine’s defense).
‘We must demand that Israel stop their attacks and demand that all parties come to the table and find common ground,’ he wrote.
It says Trump ‘destroyed the MidEast’ and blasted his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal. He used the correct official acronym, JCPOA, which suggests some knowledge of the political debate around the move. He blamed Trump ‘for all those lives lost and all the destruction.’
Earlier this month, the Justice Department announced charged in an alleged Iranaian plot to try to kill Trump.