Trump was target of ‘assassination attempt,’ Florida suspect said in note: feds

The antheral accused successful the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump astatine a play people successful Florida near down a enactment saying that helium intended to termination the erstwhile president and kept successful his car a handwritten database of dates and venues wherever Trump was to appear, the Justice Department said Monday.

The caller allegations were included successful a detention memo filed up of a proceeding Monday astatine which the Justice Department was expected to reason that 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh should stay locked up arsenic the lawsuit moves forward.

The details are meant to buttress prosecutors’ assertions that Routh is simply a menace to nationalist information with a premeditated program to termination Trump — a crippled officials accidental was thwarted by a Secret Service cause who spotted a firearm poking retired of shrubbery connected the West Palm Beach play people wherever Trump was playing.

The enactment was placed successful a container dropped disconnected months earlier astatine the location of an unidentified idiosyncratic who did not unfastened it until aft past Sunday’s arrest. The container besides contained ammunition, a metallic pipe, gathering materials, tools, phones and assorted letters. The idiosyncratic who received the container and contacted instrumentality enforcement was not identified successful the Justice Department’s detention memo.

One note, addressed “Dear World,” appears to person been premised connected the thought that the assassination effort would beryllium unsuccessful.

“This was an assassination effort connected Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my champion and gave it each the gumption I could muster. It is up to you present to decorativeness the job; and I volition connection $150,000 to whomever tin implicit the job,” the enactment said, according to prosecutors.

An lawyer for Routh didn’t instantly respond to an email seeking remark Monday morning.

Cellphone records cited by the Justice Department bespeak Routh traveled to West Palm Beach from Greensboro successful mid-August, and that helium was adjacent Trump’s play nine and the erstwhile president’s Mar-a-Lago residence “on aggregate days and times” betwixt August 18 and the time of the evident attempted assassination.

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He was arrested connected Sunday day aft a Secret Service cause who was scoping the Trump International Golf Club for imaginable information threats saw a partially obscured man’s face, and the tube of a semiautomatic rifle, aimed straight astatine him. The cause fired astatine Routh, who sped distant earlier being stopped by officials successful a neighboring county.

The Secret Service has said Routh did not occurrence immoderate shots and ne'er had Trump successful his enactment of sight.

The Justice Department besides said Monday that authorities who searched his car recovered six cellphones, including 1 that showed a Google hunt of however to question from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

They besides recovered a database with dates successful August, September and October and venues wherever Trump had appeared oregon was scheduled to, according to prosecutors. A notebook recovered successful his car was filled with disapproval of the Russian and Chinese governments and notes astir however to articulation the warfare connected behalf of Ukraine.

The detention memo besides cites a publication authored by Routh past twelvemonth successful which helium lambasted Trump’s attack to overseas policy, including successful Ukraine. In the book, helium wrote that Iran was “free to assassinate Trump” for having near the atomic deal.

Routh is charged with illegally possessing his weapon successful spite of aggregate felony convictions, including 2 charges of possessing stolen goods successful 2002 successful North Carolina, and with possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More superior charges are imaginable successful the weeks ahead.