A man accused of trying to assassinate former President Trump at one of his Florida golf courses earlier this month has pleaded not guilty to five federal charges. According to the Associated Press.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged Monday with attempted assassination of a major political candidate and assault on a federal officer after he allegedly planted a rifle around President Trump's West Palm Beach golf course. He appeared in federal court to enter a not guilty plea. Encourages Secret Service agents to open fire.
Routh also pleaded not guilty to charges of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number in furtherance of a crime of violence, despite being a convicted felon.
Prosecutors say Routh planned to kill President Trump while he was playing golf on September 15, and staked out the area around the sixth hole for about 12 hours before being discovered and fleeing. . They revealed last week that Routh allegedly wrote a letter detailing the plan months before the assassination attempt.
“Dear friends, this was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and I am so sorry that it failed,” Routh wrote in a letter filed by prosecutors. “I tried my best and gave it my all.”
Monday's arraignment lasted less than five minutes, and Routh's attorney requested a jury trial, according to NewsNation.
While waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom, Routh smiled at the media in the courtroom and nodded to a sketch artist, NewsNation reported.
This was the second recent attempt on President Trump's life, after the former president was shot in the ear and left bleeding during a campaign rally in July in Butler, Pennsylvania. The gunman opened fire on President Trump and killed rally attendees before being killed by a Secret Service sniper. .
The Secret Service said Mr. Routh did not fire and did not have Mr. Trump in his line of sight. When Secret Service agents spotted him, he allegedly fled the scene, leaving behind two bags and a rifle with a scope.
According to an FBI affidavit, he was stopped by police on Interstate 95 in a neighboring county and responded affirmatively saying he knew why he was being stopped.
Prosecutors later said Routh traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina area to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14 and called cell towers near a golf course and Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion in the month before the incident. It was revealed that he was ringing.
Routh's criminal history is extensive and includes dozens of charges in North Carolina, ranging from traffic violations to felonies for possession of weapons of mass destruction and possession of stolen property.
The former president is trying to make the assassination attempt a campaign issue by suggesting that the “Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Justice Department and FBI” cannot be trusted to handle the case. Until Routh was indicted for attempted assassination, only two of the firearms charges had been prosecuted, which the Trump campaign called a “slap on the wrist.”
The assassination suspect's case was randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who dismissed the former president's classified documents criminal case earlier this year.
Updated at 12:46pm EDT
