This screengrab taken from AFPTV on Monday shows Ryan Wesley Routh speaking at a rally to urge foreign leaders and international organizations to help provide humanitarian corridors to evacuate Ukrainians from Mariupol in April 2022.
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The man arrested in connection with what the FBI is calling an apparent attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has a lengthy criminal record and recent fixation on global politics, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The suspect, whom local officials identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, was taken into custody on Sunday afternoon on Interstate 95 near West Palm Beach, Fla., after what authorities say was possibly an attempt on Trump’s life at his golf club — the second that Trump has survived in the last nine weeks.
Local authorities said a U.S. Secret Service agent who was stationed one hole ahead of Trump on the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach spotted an AK-style rifle sticking out of a fence. The suspect holding the rifle was hiding in the shrubbery some 300 to 500 yards away from the Republican presidential nominee.
It’s not clear whether Routh fired any shots, but the agent opened fire on him. He took off in a black Nissan, which authorities located on the highway a short while later, thanks to an eyewitness tip.
Routh has been charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
In his first appearance in a West Palm Beach federal courtroom Monday morning, Routh — wearing a navy blue prison jumpsuit and shackles — appeared subdued, respectful and in good spirits. He could be seen laughing at times with his federal public defender.
The judge told Routh he qualified for a federal public defender because “you have little or no assets.” Routh said he has zero funds and no savings and reported making an income of $3,000 a week, but didn’t specify the source. He said he owns two trucks in Hawaii and helps support his 25-year-old son.
Routh will remain in custody until his arraignment on Sept. 30.
Public records, social media posts and previous interviews have painted a picture of the 58-year-old as a vocal supporter-turned-critic of Trump who was passionate about defending Ukraine in its war with Russia and even traveled to the front lines in the hopes of taking up the fight.
Here’s what we know about him so far.
He has a criminal record dating back decades
Routh spent most of his adulthood in North Carolina, before moving to Hawaii in recent years.
He graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a mechanical engineering degree in 1998, according to his LinkedIn page.
Records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction reveal Routh’s long history of trouble with the law, including a 2002 conviction on a felony charge of possessing a weapon of mass destruction.
A December 2002 story in the Greensboro News and Record recounts an incident in which Routh was pulled over during a traffic stop on a Sunday night. He “put his hand on a firearm” and drove to his roofing business, where he barricaded himself inside for three hours. The weapons of mass destruction charge pertained to a “fully automatic machine gun,” it reported.
Routh was charged with several other misdemeanors and felonies between 2001 and 2010, including a hit-and-run offense, carrying a concealed weapon and possessing stolen goods.
Separately, North Carolina judicial records list Routh as the defendant in over half a dozen court cases between 1991 and 2016, including tax delinquencies and bad checks.
Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page that he had “passed along any meager remnants of myself in North Carolina and relocated to Oahu.” He has lived and worked in Hawaii since 2018, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Law enforcement sources told the newspaper that Honolulu police have records of four interactions with Routh: two in 2019 — including an incident where he and two others allegedly squatted on property — and another two in 2021, when Routh reported being assaulted by a resident whose home he was working on as a handyman.
Routh describes himself as the owner of Camp Box Honolulu, a company that builds portable storage units and tiny homes.
“We cannot sit idle, as some of our friends and neighbors around us struggle, when we ourselves are smart enough to create our own solutions to our own problems,” the website reads. “Using common sense and American ingenuity and the resources that we have, together we can create our own happy places.”
He once supported Trump, but recently donated to Democrats
North Carolina voting records list Routh as unaffiliated with any party, though they also show that he voted in person in the Democratic primary election in March 2024.
He is also listed as having voted in the general elections in 2008 and 2012, and municipal elections in 2009.
Routh has a history of donating to political causes, as Federal Election Commission records show. He donated to the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue nearly 20 times — in amounts ranging from $1 to $25 — between September 2019 and March 2020.
Routh appears to have voted for Trump in 2016, but became a vocal critic of the former president in recent years, according to posts on his social media accounts, which have since been taken down.
CNN reports that he tweeted in 2020: “I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving. I will be glad when you gone.”
Routh also weighed in after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally in July, urging President Biden and Vice President Harris to visit those who had been injured as “Trump will never do anything for them.”
Routh also referenced his former support for Trump in his 2023 self-published book, in which he referred to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as a “catastrophe … perpetrated by Donald Trump and his undemocratic posse.”
According to CNN, Routh wrote that he must take part of the blame for electing Trump as president, “but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake.”
Routh’s 291-page book, Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity, covers a topic that seems to have consumed Routh in recent years.
Routh is an avid supporter of Ukraine’s defense
Routh has expressed strong support for Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s full-fledged invasion in early 2022, and seemed to be on a mission to get foreigners — himself included — to the front lines.
“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE…Can I be the example We must win,” Routh wrote on X in March 2022, per CNN.
Routh traveled to the capital of Kyiv that year, but was told — given his age and lack of military experience — that he was “not an ideal candidate,” as he told Newsweek Romania in 2022.
“So plan B was to come here to Kyiv and promote getting more people here,” he said.
Since then, he has used social media to encourage and attempt to recruit foreigners to fight in Ukraine, and has spoken about those efforts in several social media interviews.
Routh told The New York Times in March 2023 that he was seeking recruits among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban, aiming to purchase passports through Pakistan (“since it’s such a corrupt country”) and move them — in some cases illegally — into Ukraine from Pakistan and Iran. The Times described Routh as a “former construction worker from Greensboro, N.C. … who spent several months in Ukraine last year.”
That same month, he complained to Semafor about the Ukrainian government’s lack of support, saying it was being overly rigid about admitting foreign soldiers, especially from Afghanistan, over concerns that they might be Russian spies.
“I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa,” said Routh, who was identified as the head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine — “a private organization which helps foreigners seeking to assist the war effort connect with military units and aid groups.”
A representative from Ukraine’s foreign legion told CNN that Routh had reached out to them several times online, but “was never part of the Legion and didn’t cooperate with us in any way.”
“The best way to describe his messages is — delusional ideas,” said Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Land Forces Command. “He was offering us large numbers of recruits from different countries but it was obvious to us his offers were not realistic. We didn’t even answer, there was nothing to answer to.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the apparent assassination attempt in a tweet on Monday, saying “political violence has no place anywhere in the world.”
When asked about the incident on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it shows that “playing with fire” has consequences — an apparent reference to U.S. support of Ukraine.
Routh’s family has defended him
One of Routh’s sons, Adam, told Reuters immediately after the incident that it was not something he believed his dad would do.
Another, Oran, told CNN that it’s not like his father “to do anything crazy, much less violent.”
“I don’t have any comment beyond a character profile of him as a loving and caring father, and honest, hardworking man,” Oran Routh said in a statement.
He also told the Daily Mail that his dad hates Trump, but stressed that he is not a violent person and said he’s never known him to own a gun. The Daily Mail reports that Routh hung up to find out what had happened, and followed up later over text.
“I hate this game every four years, and think that we all do, and if my father wants to be a martyr to how broken and disassociated the process has become from the real problems and practical solutions, then that’s his choice,” he wrote.
