Ryan Wesley Routh penned chilling note targeting Donald Trump months before arrest: ‘Trump is unfit to be anything’
The man accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course wrote a chilling note months earlier declaring he intended to kill the former president, the Justice Department said Monday.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, allegedly dropped the note — addressed “To the World” — in a box at an unnamed person’s home in the months before the foiled Sept. 15 assassination attempt at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach, federal prosecutors said in a court filing hours before Routh was ordered held without bail.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” the letter read.
“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.”
“Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president. US presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity,” it continued.
The handwritten note was only discovered after the person opened the box and alerted authorities in the wake of Routh’s arrest, prosecutors said.
The box also contained “ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones” and multiple other letters.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Routh allegedly wrote the note on the premise that the assassination attempt would be unsuccessful, or if he was referring to another apparent plot.
Elsewhere in the letter, the suspect ripped Trump’s foreign policy, writing: “He [the former president] ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.”
Prosecutors had argued that Routh should be kept in jail ahead of trial, while federal public defender Kristy Militello asked for the defendant to be allowed to live with his sister in North Carolina as the case goes forward.
US Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe ordered Routh back behind bars, saying the “weight of the evidence against the defendant is strong.”
Routh was taken into custody after a Secret Service agent spotted the muzzle of a SKS semiautomatic rifle sticking through the shrubbery off the 6th hole of the golf course and opened fire before the suspect could take a shot at Trump.
The alleged would-be assassin dropped his rifle and fled in an SUV — leaving behind the firearm, two backpacks and a GoPro camera, according to court filings.
Here's what we know about the assassination attempt on Trump in Florida:
- Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sept. 15, 2024.
- Trump sent out a statement to supporters soon after to report that he was “SAFE AND WELL.”
- The suspect — identified as Ryan Routh, 58, of Hawaii — was able to get within 300 to 500 yards of Trump at a chain link fence on the edge of the course, where he had an AK-47 and a GoPro camera set up, apparently to record the planned shooting.
- Routh has a history of supporting progressive causes online and has made 19 donations to Democratic candidates since 2019.
- A Secret Service agent spotted and opened fire on Routh as he put his gun through the fence. The suspect fled and was arrested on I-95 a short time later.
- According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Trump’s security detail was lighter because he isn’t a sitting president — despite the previous attempt on his life in July.
Routh was stopped and arrested some 40 minutes later on Interstate 95 in Martin County, Fla.
Authorities who searched Routh’s car found six cellphones, including one that showed a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico, the court papers charge.
Two of the cellphones discovered indicated Routh traveled from Greensboro, NC to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14 — about a month before the assassination attempt.
The FBI analysis found the cellphones were in proximity to Trump’s golf course multiple times between Aug. 18 and Sept. 15.
Investigators also found a list of dates in August, September and October — as well as venues where Trump had appeared or was scheduled to appear, according to prosecutors.
Another notebook found in the car was allegedly filled with criticism of the Russian and Chinese governments and notes about how to join the war on behalf of Ukraine.
The DOJ filing stated that the FBI has taken note of an excerpt in Routh’s 2023 book, titled, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment, and the Global Citizen — Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII and the End of Humanity.”
In the book, Routh wrote he “must take part of the blame for the [person] that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize.”
“You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment for the dismantling of the [2015 nuclear] deal. No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection,” the book reads.
The FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt is ongoing.
Routh currently faces a pair of federal weapons charges — possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and having a gun with an obliterated serial number — but prosecutor Mark Dispoto foreshadowed Monday that more serious charges would be coming, with the government preparing to go before a grand jury to indict Routh on charges of having tried to “assassinate a major political candidate.”
If charged and convicted of that offense, Routh could receive life in prison.
