There are fears would-be Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh had help from the inside when he targeted the former president at his Florida golf club Sunday.
Routh, 58, is in custody after aiming an AK-47 rifle barrel towards Trump when he was golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday. He is expected to be charged overnight.
Trump’s game was not publicly known about as it was a last-minute decision and his schedule is not provided to the press, leading many to wonder how Routh knew Trump would be on the greens.
Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters at a press conference that the Secret Service had a ‘limited’ ability to protect Trump at his golf course.
Reporter Marc Caputo said Sunday that Trump has already raised questions about the first attempt on his life two months ago and that Sunday’s events are likely to cause wilder speculation about ‘dark forces’ trying to take him down.
‘Leading up to this, the former president had been subject to some critical coverage in the news media for stoking some conspiracy theories about the first attempt and now that the second one came along, it’s going to be hard to convince him that there’s not some deeper, darker force at work’.
One social media user wrote to that effect: ‘It’s time to start working on the assumption that there must be some sort of collaborative effort to take Trump down’.
Caputo says that what’s bedeviled both observers and authorities is how Routh – who moved from North Carolina to Hawaii in the 2010s – was able to plot this from out of state.
‘The question no one’s able to answer yet and hopefully will be answered: the alleged assassin appeared to have been from out of state. How did he drive down there? How did he case the joint? How did he know when the former president would be there and come within his potential line of sight?’
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk put it succinctly: ‘President Trump’s round of golf was NOT on any public schedule. How did the suspect know Trump was golfing there today? How did he get a semi-automatic rifle so close to the president?
Caputo adds that local law enforcement are asking the same question, with no real theories yet.
He also notes what some liberals have been theorizing on social media: that golf is Trump’s favorite hobby and that he was likely to be found at his golf club on a Sunday.
‘It is true that Donald Trump is somewhat of a creature of habit. He does have a tendency to play golf on Sundays when he’s in town’.
An anti-Trump X user wrote exactly this: ‘Because he golfs every day’.
However, a conservative social media account immediately responded: ‘Secret Service can’t be trusted!’
Michael Wilner, writing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, immediately questioned as such in a column titled: ‘Can Secret Service protect Trump?’
‘We have increased the amount of assets we have supported. We live in dangerous times’, a Secret Service representative said at a press conference following the attempt when asked how this could happen.
Wilner noted that Joe Biden himself said that the Secret Service ‘doesn’t let me’ go out in crowds anymore ‘because it’s too dangerous’.
Bradshaw himself admitted: ‘He’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would’ve had the entire golf course surrounded. Because he’s not, the security is limited to areas the Secret Service deems possible.’
Florida Republican Congressman Carlos Gimenez said that Bradshaw’s reasoning is not good enough.
‘At this point, the man’s already been shot. He barely escaped with his life. He is a candidate for president of the United States, he is a former president, and that’s the excuse you give? If he were president you’d protect him better? That’s inexcusable.’
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, said that the solution was to give the Secret Service independence from Homeland Security.
‘It is imperative that we move Secret Service out from under the Department of Homeland Security and back to the Treasury Department, where they had more focus,’ Graham said. ‘It is time to increase resources.’
Trump praised those who protected him in a post on Truth Social Sunday night.
‘I would like to thank everyone for your concern and well wishes – It was certainly an interesting day! Most importantly, I want to thank the U.S. Secret Service, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and his Office of brave and dedicated Patriots, and, all of Law Enforcement, for the incredible job done today at Trump International in keeping me, as the 45th President of the United States, and the Republican Nominee in the upcoming Presidential Election, SAFE’.
Routh, 58 is in custody after the terrifying incident at Trump International Club almost exactly two months after a separate assassination attempt against Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The suspect was found unarmed, as a backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 style rifle that a gunman left behind when fleeing the scene have already been located.
Martin County Sherriff William D. Snyder said Routh ‘was not displaying a lot of emotions’ when police arrested him.
Snyder added that the suspected shooter was ‘relatively calm’ and ‘never asked’ why he was being detained.
The car Routh was found in will be taken into FBI custody for further investigation, according to authorities.
Officials said U.S. Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of the bushes two holes ahead of where Trump was golfing on Sunday, prompting the agents to fire at the suspect.
The individual ran into his vehicle from the trees, but was spotted by a witness who snapped a picture of his vehicle – a black Nissan – which included the license plate.
Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters at a press conference hours after the incident that the witness was able to share the plate and later identify the suspect as the person he saw fleeing the scene.
Bradshaw said that the Secret Service had a ‘limited’ ability to protect Trump at the golf course.
‘The golf course is surrounded by shrubbery, so when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they’re pretty much out of sight, all right, and at this level that he is at right now, he’s not the sitting president,’ Bradshaw said.
The former president was rushed to safety on Sunday after multiple shots were fired in his vicinity while he was playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach.
Routh was able to get within 400-500 yards of Trump.
The 2024 Republican nominee’s bulked up Secret Service advance team, however, spotted the shooter in the tree lines just two holes from where Trump was golfing.
Special Agent Rafael Barros explained at the press conference on Sunday that Secret Service moves with Trump and is usually surveying one or two holes ahead of him when he goes for a round of golf.
Asked if the security has changed around Trump since the first attempt on his life earlier this summer, Barros said: ‘Yes, the threat was high.’
‘We have increased the amount of assets that we’ve supported,’ he continued. ‘We are living in dangerous times.’
Real estate investor and New York City landlord Steve Witkoff was Trump’s golfing buddy on Sunday, sources told DailyMail.com.
The FBI released a statement two hours after the incident claiming the attack ‘appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump.’
The armed suspect was posted up outside the club around the 5th and 6th hole, which is confirmed to be a more ‘vulnerable’ area of the course because it is closest to the road.
Sheriff Bradshaw detailed that the suspected assassin was wielding an ‘AK-47 style weapon with a scope’, which was recovered at the scene.
So was a backpack and GoPro camera, which Sheriff Bradshaw revealed in images of where the suspect was set-up in the bushes along the fencing of Trump’s golf club.
The area where the suspect was first spotted by his security detail was two holes ahead of where Trump was golfing at the time of gunshots, causing the individual to flee.
Undergrowth is cut back in this area every summer and is one of the parts of the course closest to the road.
Routh’s arrest has led to a search for who he is and how he ended up alarmingly close to the president with a a semi-automatic rifle.
The would-be shooter went from voting for Trump in 2016 to donating to Democrats in 2020, to four years later calling him a ‘threat to democracy’ and that he’d ‘be glad when’ Trump’s gone and had a Biden-Harris bumper sticker on his car.
He also appears to have a record of over 100 counts of various crimes, including a 2002 arrest for possessing a weapon of mass destruction, per the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.