What We Know About the Trump Assassination Attempt Suspect

The suspect in an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump is a staunch supporter of Ukraine who was shunned by the country’s armed forces and did not contribute significantly to the war effort.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who appeared in court Monday, is originally from North Carolina and has spent most of his life there but most recently lived in Hawaii.

He voted for Trump in 2016, but later turned against him and made statements of support and contributions to other politicians.

Here are some of the other things we know about him.

He is suspected of going to the Trump International Golf Course in Florida on Sunday armed with an SKS-style rifle. The FBI recovered the weapon and scope, two backpacks and a GoPro camera in a heavily brushed area.

Law enforcement says Routh fled the area when a Secret Service agent fired shots in his direction after spotting a rifle barrel protruding from the bushes.

He does not appear to have fired his own weapon during the incident, and he does not appear to have had a clear line of sight to Trump at any time.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said two officers spotted Routh’s vehicle, a black Nissan, and followed it for 45 minutes.

Routh was stopped on Interstate 95, a major highway, and arrested.

He was initially charged with federal firearms offenses. The affidavit says Routh’s phone was in “proximity” to the covered area for 12 hours.

It was later determined that the car, a Nissan SUV, had license plates belonging to a 2012 Ford that had been reported stolen.

BBC Verify found a number of social media profiles matching Routh’s name.

Routh has repeatedly touted his work encouraging foreign fighters to travel to Ukraine to fight Russia.

However, most of his organizing appears to have taken place while he was in the United States, not Ukraine, where in 2022 he was rejected by the country’s International Legion due to his lack of combat experience.

The FBI is still investigating his ties to Ukraine and has sent multiple requests to companies seeking data from his phone and social media accounts.

His profile also contains pro-Palestinian, pro-Taiwan and anti-China posts, including allegations of Chinese “biological warfare” and references to the Covid-19 virus as an “attack.”

In a 2020 post on X, Routh suggested that he voted for Trump in 2016 but was disappointed, writing, “I’ll be happy when you’re gone.”

Routh also posted an online message urging President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris to meet with victims of the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

Routh was registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina but appears to have voted in the last Democratic primary in March, according to state records.

In 2019 and 2020, he made a number of small donations totaling about $140 (£106) to ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising organization, according to online federal election records.

An Associated Press photo showing a truck in front of Routh’s Hawaii home had a Biden-Harris campaign sticker on the back.

In the past, Routh has also endorsed candidates such as Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat who has since left the party and supported Trump, and has also declared his support for former Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley.

Routh described himself as a “volunteer coordinator” and his ambitions to join the fight were not realized.

The International Legion told the BBC that Routh had “never been a member, associated with or connected” with the legion… in any capacity.

One legion volunteer described Routh to the BBC as a chaotic presence who constantly tried to “circumvent” officials and “did more harm than good”.

The volunteer said Routh was in Ukraine in April 2022.

“He was not part of any unit and his activities caused chaos,” the volunteer said.

“He was also trying to present himself as some sort of official entity for all the volunteers, which he was not, again,” she said.

Routh told The New York Times in 2023 that he wanted to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban.

A Facebook post last July read: “Soldiers, please don’t call me. We are still trying to convince Ukraine to accept Afghan soldiers and hope to have answers in the coming months… please be patient.”

In a self-published book published in February 2023, Routh complains about how his efforts have been received in Ukraine. “I have yet to see… any trace of appreciation or respect,” he writes.

In his book, Routh describes spending five months in Ukraine working on various projects, including a drone-building program. He says his efforts either failed or were shut down by authorities.

The book also contains a passage where he encourages Iranian officials to say they were “free to assassinate Trump.”

Records show Routh’s legal troubles date back to the 1990s, including a variety of felonies and misdemeanors, including numerous charges of theft of property.

He was charged and convicted of numerous felonies in Guilford County, North Carolina, between 2002 and 2010, according to online records.

In 2002, he was charged with possessing a fully automatic machine gun, described in court documents as a “weapon of mass destruction.”

An article from a local newspaper since time He noted that he barricaded himself in a business and had a three-hour standoff with police in the city of Greensboro before being taken into custody.

In another incident, records show he was charged with misdemeanors including hit-and-run, resisting arrest and carrying a concealed weapon.

His alleged offences also include driving with a revoked licence and possession of stolen property.

In 2019, the FBI also received a tip that Routh was a felon in possession of a firearm. This unverified tip was passed on to local law enforcement in Honolulu.

His former neighbor, Kim Mungo, described Routh as a “sweetheart” and said federal agents had previously raided Routh’s property.

She said he kept “a lot of stolen property and miscellaneous items” at his home and said she saw Routh and his family shooting guns in the open.

Routh’s eldest son, Oran, describes his father as “a loving and caring father, and an honest and hard-working man.”

He told CNN: “I don’t know what happened in Florida, and I hope things just got blown out of proportion, because from what little I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like the man I know is doing anything crazy, let alone violent.”

The FBI is seeking friends and family members for interviews, including in North Carolina and Hawaii.

Routh appeared before a judge Monday in Palm Beach County Court near Mar-a-Lago, charged with firearms offenses.

The charges against him did not include any reference to an attempted murder of Trump, although the FBI has said it is investigating Sunday’s incident as an assassination attempt.

Law enforcement said after the court appearance that the suspect did not fire a weapon and did not have a line of sight on Trump.

Secret Service and Homeland Security agents raided Routh’s former home in Greensboro, North Carolina.

A hearing is scheduled for next Monday to determine whether he should be kept in custody. Prosecutors say he poses a flight risk and a danger to the community.