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The trial for Donald Trump gunman Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, is taking a dramatic twist. Prosecutors requested an ‘indefinite delay’ in the trial as they comb through ‘thousands of videos’ and ‘4 million gigabytes’ of text and audio files.
They also said they’ve executed 13 search warrants and have seized ‘hundreds of items of evidence’ including electronic devices. His trial has been set to begin on November 18, but it could be delayed once the judge makes a determination.
Routh pleaded not guilty to several charges, including attempted assassination of the former president earlier this week. Routh appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday days after being charged with attempting to assassinate Trump. He has been ordered to remain in jail without bail as his case snakes through the court.
He faces five total federal charges after cops said he pointed a rifle through a fence at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach on September 15. Last week, prosecutors revealed he wrote a chilling letter admitting he failed in trying to take the life of the former president.
Routh also offered $150,000 for anyone who could ‘finish the job’ according to the note released by the Department of Justice on Monday and obtained by DailyMail.com. ‘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. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,’ the letter reads. It was addressed to ‘the world’ and said Trump had ‘ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled’.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was forced to defend making the letter public, after Republicans accused him of putting a ‘$150,000 bounty’ on Trump’s head Routh, 58, also had a list of Trump’s upcoming public appearances and had googled a route from Palm Beach, Fla., to Mexico. He is set to appear in federal court on Monday for a detention hearing after the attempted assassination on September 15 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Ahead of that appearance, federal prosecutors submitted a written factual proffer with new details about the day Routh tried to assassinate Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course. In addition to outlining the evidence against Routh, the Justice Department argued that he should remain locked up as the case moves forward.
The document reveals a Secret Service agent was riding the fence line between Trump’s course and the public street, one hole ahead of the former president, when he ‘spotted the partially obscured face of a man in the brush along the fence line.’ The man was later IDed as Routh. The agent then noticed a rifle barrel sticking out and fired at the suspect.
The agent then ‘took cover behind a tree and reloaded his weapon, then looked up’ to see Routh was gone. Routh was positioned directly in the line of sight of the 6th hole green. Trump was playing on the 5th hole at the time of the incident. Secret Service agents hustled him off the course when they heard the shots fired at the 6th hole by their fellow agent. After the agent fired, a witness saw Routh run across Summit Boulevard toward a black Nissan Xterra, bearing a Florida license plate, parked nearby.
The witness took photographs of the Nissan Xterra and wrote down all but the last digit of the license plate number. Using that information, local law enforcement was able to find the vehicle and arrest Routh. In the vehicle, law enforcement found six cellphones, one of which ‘contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.’
Also in the vehicle were 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaian driver’s license in Routh’s name and a list of Trump’s public appearances for August, September, and October. Additionally was a notebook with ‘dozens of pages filled with names and phone numbers pertaining to Ukraine, discussions about how to join combat on behalf of Ukraine, and notes criticizing the governments of China and Russia.’ On September 18th, law enforcement was contacted by a witness who said Routh had dropped off a box at his residence several months prior. After seeing the news of what happened at the golf course, the witness opened the box.
Among its contents was a chilling letter addressed to ‘The World,’ where Routh announced his intentions to kill the former president – and predicted he would fail. He then offered six figures to anyone who would complete the task. ‘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. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,’ he says in the hand-written note. ‘Everyone acress the globe from the youngest to the oldest knows that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less U.S. president. U.S. presidents must at the bare miminum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity.’ The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones, and various letters.
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