U.S. investigators are sorting through the social media accounts and other postings of the suspect in Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, trying to determine a motive and whether anyone else may have been involved.
Sheriff’s deputies in Florida arrested 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, stopping him on a major highway Sunday about an hour or so after he fled from the former president’s Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Officials said data gathered from Routh’s cellphone showed he laid in waiting for 12 hours, hiding in some bushes along a chain-link perimeter fence between the course’s fifth and seventh holes.
Routh has been charged by federal authorities with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was defeated by Trump to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, said state authorities would also investigate the incident.
DeSantis said he does not have confidence in the federal government to conduct a transparent probe.
"The state of Florida has jurisdiction over the most serious, straightforward offense, which is attempted murder," DeSantis said at a news conference, even though Routh fired no shots at Trump and never had the former president in his line of sight.
Authorities said Routh fled in a black Nissan car after a Secret Service agent fired at least four rounds in his direction after spotting a rifle muzzle poking through a chain-link fence surrounding the golf course.
DeSantis cast doubt on the federal government's ability to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation, citing the federal prosecutions against Trump in Florida and elsewhere related to his attempt to upend his 2020 reelection loss and hoard classified documents at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate not far from the golf course.
"I do think that there's a lot of concern about how these agencies have operated," DeSantis said of the four Trump probes, three of which are stalled in legal wrangling. "We're not involved in any of those of those other things that the Justice Department is involved in."
DeSantis dropped his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination after Trump easily defeated him in the party primary nomination contests earlier this year.
The governor said he would appoint a statewide prosecutor, under the supervision of the state attorney general, to handle the case because it crossed several Florida jurisdictions.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Homeland Security chief, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, praised Trump's protection detail Tuesday during an event hosted by the Politico news site.
"They should be commended," Mayorkas said, adding that Secret Service agents eliminated the threat quickly, once it was discovered, and that the agency has expanded the former president's protection.
Mayorkas said Trump is receiving “security commensurate with the fact that he's a former president and on the campaign trail."
Officials said when investigators with the FBI tried to talk to Routh following his arrest, he invoked his right to an attorney and declined to speak further.
Trump praised the work of his security detail in protecting him, but in comments to Fox News Digital on Monday appeared to place some of the blame for the incident on President Joe Biden and on Trump’s Democratic presidential opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“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,” Trump said.
The accused gunman “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump added.
Both Biden and Harris deplored the possible assassination attempt on Trump, the second in two months after Trump’s right ear was grazed in an attack at a July political rally in Pennsylvania. Both Biden and Harris called Trump on Tuesday to tell him they were grateful that he was safe after the Florida incident.
Harris told three interviewers at a National Association of Black Journalists gathering, “I told him what I said publicly. There’s no place for political violence.”
“We should have healthy disagreements and debate, but no violence,” Harris said.
The White House described the call as “a cordial and brief conversation."
During a speech to a conference of historically Black colleges and universities in Philadelphia late Monday, Biden said, “In America, we resolve our differences peacefully at the ballot box. Not at the end of a gun.”
The FBI and its law enforcement partners have focused on obtaining search warrants for a GoPro camera and other electronic devices the suspect is alleged to have left at the scene, as well as for his escape vehicle and for electronic devices left at the suspect’s previous addresses, in the mid-Atlantic state of North Carolina and across the U.S. in the Pacific island state of Hawaii.
“The subject had an active online presence, and we are going through what he posted and any searches he conducted online,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri said.
“The FBI has sent multiple requests to companies for returns on the subject's phone and social media accounts,” Veltri told reporters during a late Monday news conference. “We received several returns and are waiting on additional responses.”
In addition, Veltri said FBI field offices in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Charlotte, North Carolina, have sent agents to interview the suspect’s family members, friends and former co-workers.
Veltri said investigators are also taking a close look at other statements the suspect has made over the years, including interviews he gave to media outlets about trying to recruit Afghan soldiers and other foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine against Russia.
At one point, Routh’s online history indicates he seemed to support Trump. However, in recent years, his posts appear to suggest he had soured on the former president.
In a self-published book, from 2023, Routh appeared to encourage Iran to kill the former president.
“You are free to assassinate Trump,” he wrote in Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, describing the ex-president as a “fool” and a “buffoon.”
Authorities are looking further for any motive Routh might have had and whether he conspired with anyone.
“We do not have information that he's been acting with anyone else at present,” the FBI’s Veltri told reporters.
Investigators are also seeking to answer questions about how the suspect decided to hide and wait in a bush-covered area on the perimeter of Trump’s golf course.
“It was an off-the-record movement, meaning it was not on the on the former president's official schedule,” said Ronald Rowe, acting director of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency responsible for protecting Trump and other key government officials from any threats.
“It wasn't a site that was on his schedule. It wasn't part of his schedule,” he said. “So, there was no posting up of it because he wasn't supposed to have gone there in the first place.”
Rowe, though, defended the Secret Service agents guarding the former president, saying the security elements in place were “working,” despite the fact that the suspect was within 365 to 455 meters of Trump with a loaded AK-style rifle.
Trump, while praising his Secret Service detail in protecting him on Monday, added, “We do need more people on my detail.”
Biden gave a similar message to reporters at the White House, saying, "The Secret Service needs more help."
VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some material came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
