Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at his golf club in Palm Beach, Florida, has entered a not guilty plea on Monday. Could his legal team be going for an insanity defense? How else can he logically plead not guilty when he was not only trying to shoot at Trump, but also had all of the gear to carry out an assassination, as well as having written a letter that admits to the crime?
The Daily Wire is reporting that Routh is facing a slew of charges that include the attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and several gun charges. The suspect made a very brief court appearance before Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. A judge previously ruled that Routh would remain in a federal detention center and was not eligible for release on bail.
The charges stem from an incident on September 15 when Trump was golfing, and a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel poking out of the bushes a few holes up from Trump. The agent fired on the gunman, who then fled in a vehicle. Routh was later apprehended by law enforcement driving the vehicle that a witness had spotted leaving the scene. Law enforcement searched Routh’s vehicle and found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September, and October and venues where the former President had appeared or was expected to be present,” according to the Department of Justice.
According to investigators, Routh wrote of his plans to kill Trump in a letter that he put in a box given to a “civilian witness.”
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” the letter explained.
“Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a U.S. president,” the letter elaborated further. “U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity.”
And this isn’t Routh’s first scrape with the law. He has several previous felony convictions in the state of North Carolina dated December 2002 and March 2010.