Suspect in Trump assassination attempt charged with gun crimes

A man suspected of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump was charged with two gun-related crimes in federal court on Monday, a day after being spotted with a rifle hiding in the bushes at the former US president’s golf course in Florida.

Phone records suggest the suspect may have been lying in wait for nearly 12 hours on Sunday, according to a criminal complaint filed on Monday.

More charges appear likely, but the initial counts – possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number – will allow authorities to keep him in custody as the investigation continues.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in the November 5 election, was unharmed. But the incident raised fresh questions about how an armed suspect was able to get so close to him, just two months after another gunman fired at Trump during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear with a bullet.

The US Secret Service opened fire after an agent saw a rifle barrel poking out of the bushes on Sunday at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, a few hundred yards away from where the former president was playing.

The gunman fled in a sports utility vehicle, according to the complaint. Officers found a loaded assault-style rifle with a scope, a digital camera and a plastic bag of food left behind.

A suspect, identified on Monday as Ryan Routh, 58, was arrested about 40 minutes later driving north on Interstate 95. When asked if he knew why he had been stopped, Routh “responded in the affirmative”, according to the complaint. The licence plate on his vehicle had been reported stolen from another car.

Records show a phone associated with Routh was located at the golf course starting at 1.59am (05.59am GMT) on Sunday.

Routh has at least two prior convictions, both in North Carolina, according to the criminal complaint.

In 2002, he pleaded guilty to possessing a fully automatic gun, commonly known as a machine gun, which is outlawed in the US, and was sentenced to probation. In that case, he fled from a traffic stop in Greensboro and barricaded himself inside his roofing business before police were able to arrest him, according to court records and a 2002 news article by the Greensboro News & Record.

He was also convicted of possessing stolen goods in 2010.

Trump blamed President Joe Biden and his Democratic rival for the presidency, Vice President Kamala Harris, for the assassination attempt. He claimed the suspected gunman was acting on Democrats’ “highly inflammatory language”, though authorities have not yet offered evidence of any motive.

“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said, according to Fox.

On Sunday, Harris said on X: “Violence has no place in America.”