Ryan Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, stalked the former president for a month before his plan fell apart.
Federal prosecutors say Routh was caught hiding with a rifle near a Florida golf course where Trump was playing on September 15.
The 58-year-old left behind a confession letter saying:
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed you.”
Court documents show that Routh traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 14.
From August 18 to September 15, his phone was repeatedly tracked near Trump’s golf course and Mar-a-Lago residence.
When he was finally spotted by a Secret Service agent near the golf course, he tried to run. He was arrested 45 minutes later in a Nissan Xterra.
Cops found a handwritten list of dates and locations in the car—places where Trump had been or was expected to be. This guy was thorough, no doubt. He’d planned it all out.
Alongside the rifle, they discovered a digital camera, a backpack, and a shopping bag hanging from the fence near where he was first spotted.
The vehicle Routh was driving had a fake license plate. Inside, FBI agents found two more license plates, six cell phones, a Hawaii driver’s license, and a passport. All in his name.
He even had a notebook filled with names and numbers connected to Ukraine and some pretty intense notes on geopolitics.
Three days after Routh’s arrest, a witness contacted authorities and handed over a box Routh had left at his house months earlier. Inside was ammunition, a metal pipe, tools, four phones, and several letters. One letter, addressed to “The World,” read:
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.”
Routh criticized the former president for ending relations with Iran “like a child” and blamed him for the Middle East’s turmoil.
Routh has a criminal past too. He was legally barred from having a firearm due to two felony convictions in North Carolina.
In 2002, he was convicted of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, and in 2010, he was nailed for possession of stolen goods.
Back in July, during a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump narrowly escaped a first assassination attempt when a gunman opened fire.
One person died, and two others were injured before the shooter was taken out by a Secret Service sniper.
