Ryan Routh, a 59-year-old man from North Carolina, has been found guilty of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, president of the United States during a golf game in Florida last year.
A federal jury convicted Routh on all charges, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate and multiple firearms offences. He now faces a potential life sentence when he returns to court for sentencing on December 18.
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The incident occurred on September 15, 2024, when Trump, then campaigning to return to the White House, was playing golf at his West Palm Beach course, just minutes from his Mar-a-Lago residence.
A US Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a rifle emerging from the bushes near the course and opened fire, forcing the would-be gunman to flee. Routh was arrested shortly afterwards. Investigators later recovered a semiautomatic rifle with a scope and extended magazine at the scene, along with a list of Trump’s expected appearances and a note to a friend stating: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.”
Routh pleaded not guilty and chose to represent himself during the trial, which began earlier this month in Fort Pierce, Florida. His behaviour in court veered from eccentric to erratic.
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He challenged Trump to a game of golf, asked for access to a putting green, and delivered an opening statement that digressed into the history of human evolution, calls for kindness, and references to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin. The judge eventually cut him off.
In his closing remarks, Routh again spoke in unusual terms, describing himself in the third person, talking about US history, the war in Ukraine, and even his plans to buy a boat. He argued that he had no intent to kill Trump because he never pulled the trigger. The judge repeatedly interrupted his statements to admonish him for attempting to introduce new evidence.
Prosecutors described Routh as a man who obsessively plotted an attack over several months. John Shipley, Lead prosecutor told jurors: “You have a mountain of evidence and realise how close he got to actually pulling this off. He had a loaded round in the chamber and the safety off.”
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The jury agreed, convicting him on all counts.
Trump, posting on social media after the verdict, praised law enforcement and a witness whose information helped secure Routh’s arrest. “This was an evil man with an evil intention, and they caught him. A very big moment for JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” he wrote.
Pamela Bondi, Attorney General called the attempt “an attack on our president and an affront to our very nation itself.”
Kash Patel, FBI Director added that the bureau still had “a lot more work to do to crack down on political violence and make sure those who engage in this heinous behaviour are off the streets and behind bars.”
The Routh case marked the second major attempt on Trump’s life in 2024. Two months earlier, in Butler, Pennsylvania, a gunman opened fire at one of Trump’s campaign rallies, killing one person and injuring several others, including Trump himself, before being shot dead.
Concerns about political violence in the United States have only intensified in recent weeks after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while speaking at a university in Utah.
Routh, who once lived in Hawaii before moving back to the mainland, is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. But the trial has reignited a broader conversation about political security, gun access, and the intensifying climate of hostility around American politics.
