Prosecutors: Would-Be Killer Plotted Trump Assassination for Months, Staked Out Golf Course

Ryan Wesley Routh wrote letter offering $150,000 to copycat killer

The man charged with the most recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump started plotting the attempt months before he pointed a rifle at the former president, according to federal prosecutors’ Monday filing, which includes a chilling letter written by the suspect.

Prosecutors said the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, left a box—which contained ammunition, four phones, and letters—with an anonymous witness “several months” before his September assassination attempt. After learning of the assassination attempt, the witness opened the box, according to the filing.

“Dear World, this was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” one letter reads. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.”

The new filing revealed that Routh traveled from the Greensboro, N.C., area to West Palm Beach, Fla., on August 14. Routh also staked out Trump’s golf course and Mar-a-Lago estate for nearly a month in the lead-up to the incident, his phone record showed.

On September 15, Routh pushed the muzzle of an AK-47 through the perimeter of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course in Florida, hoping to take the former president’s life. Before he got a shot off, a Secret Service agent saw Routh’s barrel and fired multiple shots, forcing Routh to flee the course. He was soon arrested on Interstate 95.

Expecting his assassination attempt to be unsuccessful, Routh in the letter offers a $150,000 reward to “whomever can complete the job.”

Routh’s attempt came just two months after Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. Crooks killed one attendee and wounded three others, including Trump, before being killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.

Routh, who has a lengthy criminal record and exclusively donated to Democrats, regularly expressed anti-Trump sentiments, which were on full display in his letters.

“Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president. U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity,” one letter reads.

Routh allegedly camped at the golf course for around 12 hours before the Secret Service spotted him, prompting Martin County sheriff William Snyder to question whether Routh was part of a “conspiracy” to kill the former president.

“I think that’s the question the FBI, the Secret Service are laser-focused on today. Is this guy part of a conspiracy? Is he a lone gunman?” Snyder said. “If he’s part of a conspiracy, then this whole thing really takes on a very ominous tone.”

Routh was charged last week with the possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and the possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.