The FBI Had Already Been Warned About Trump Assassination Suspect Ryan Routh: Report
The man accused of plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump had been on the radar of U.S. federal authorities long before his arrest in Florida on Sunday, according to a report released on Tuesday.
A nurse who crossed paths with Ryan Wesley Routh in Ukraine was so alarmed by his actions that she alerted the FBI in 2023, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. This wasn’t the first time Routh’s name had come to the FBI's attention.
Routh, an outspoken leftist, has a criminal record, including a felony conviction in 2002 for possessing a fully automatic machine gun, according to the New York Post. He was apprehended after fleeing from the Trump International Golf Course near West Palm Beach, apparently frightened off by gunfire from a Secret Service agent.
Authorities discovered a “loaded SKS-style, 7.62×39 caliber rifle with a scope,” a backpack, and a GoPro camera at the scene. The serial number on the rifle had been defaced. Routh faces up to 20 years in prison for the weapons charges alone.
The Journal reports that Routh traveled to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, claiming he was assembling volunteer fighters from Afghanistan to join the conflict in Europe. However, his efforts raised red flags.
Sarah Adams, a former CIA officer involved in organizing humanitarian and volunteer efforts in Ukraine, described Routh as a “fraudster” and “kind of a whack job.” Adams told the Journal that some suspected Routh of being involved in “human trafficking or immigration fraud.” She added, “A lot of people were trying to get him to stop his activities, or at least prevent people from falling for his scams.”
Routh was also known for his disdain for Trump. A French man who met Routh in Ukraine in 2022 told the Journal that Routh was “very upset about the fact that Trump was trying to negotiate a deal with Putin instead of trying to really have Ukraine’s back.”
Chelsea Walsh, a nurse from West Palm Beach who worked in Ukraine and encountered Routh there, shared her concerns with U.S. authorities. She reported him to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) upon returning to the U.S., telling the Journal that she found Routh to be "among the most dangerous Americans" she had encountered during her six-week stay in Ukraine.
Walsh later took her worries to the FBI in 2023 after hearing that Routh was trying to recruit Syrian refugees to fight in Ukraine. She filed reports with both the FBI and Interpol but received no response from either organization, according to the Journal. After the attempted assassination on Sunday, she called the FBI’s tip line and spoke with someone for over 20 minutes.
At a news conference on Monday, FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri revealed that Routh had previously been reported to the FBI in 2019 while living in Hawaii.
The tip suggested Routh possessed a firearm, which would have been illegal due to his felony conviction. Veltri noted that the FBI followed up on the tip but the person who initially reported the information could not confirm it when interviewed. The FBI then passed the details to local law enforcement in Honolulu.