Suspected Donald Trump gunman charged with attempted assassination

By Chris Strohm

The man who was found hiding in the bushes with a loaded rifle at Donald Trump’s golf course has been indicted for attempting to assassinate the former president. 
 

Ryan Routh was charged with attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime and assaulting a federal officer, according to an indictment released Tuesday by the US Justice Department. 

Routh also faces two previous charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

“Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable for the attempted assassination of former President Trump charged in the indictment,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. 

Routh appears to have stalked Trump, the Republican nominee for president, at his Florida golf club and Mar-a-Lago resort for a month before he was apprehended Sept. 15, the department said in a filing Monday. 

Investigators said he wrote a letter addressed to the “world” admitting he tried to kill Trump.

The case is assigned to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee in south Florida who presided over a criminal prosecution of the former president for mishandling classified documents and made a controversial decision in July to throw out the case.