Golf club gunman charged with Trump assassination attempt

A federal grand jury late Tuesday afternoon returned an indictment against 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh for allegedly attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Prosecutors are charging him with assaulting a Secret Service officer, trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate and gun charges including possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Routh should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.

What happened in the assassination attempt? A U.S. Secret Service agent found Routh hiding in some brush near the sixth hole of Trump International Golf Club on Sept. 15, the DOJ said in a statement about the indictment. The agent was conducting a perimeter check as part of Trump’s security detail while he was visiting the Miami club, according to the DOJ. The agent saw Routh’s partially obscured face and the barrel of a firearm poking out of the brush, according to the statement. The agent opened fire on him, who then ran, fleeing the golf course in a Nissan Xterra. Police later pulled Routh over on Interstate 95 where he was driving North.

Why do authorities think it was an attempted assassination? In the spot where Routh was allegedly hiding in the brush, investigators found an SKS automatic rifle with a scope and an extended magazine, the DOJ said. The rifle’s serial number had been obliterated. Investigators also found a handwritten list of dates with several recent and upcoming public appearances of former President Trump.

In the Nissan Xterra, police found cell phones that had pinged cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in the weeks prior to the shooting, the DOJ said. A witness testified that Routh had dropped off a box at the witness’ residence several months before the shooting, according to the DOJ’s statement. The box contained a handwritten statement from Routh describing an attempt to assassinate Trump and apologizing for a lack of success, the DOJ said.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report in The Sift immediately following the attempt on Trump’s life.