topnaijanews Stay informed with the latest Nigerian news at your fingertips
Donald Trump gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including attempted assassination of the former president.
Routh, 58, appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday days after being charged with attempting to assassinate Trump.
He was ordered to remain in jail without bail as his case snakes through the court.
Routh faces five total federal charges after cops said he pointed a rifle through a fence at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach on September 15.
Last week, prosecutors revealed he wrote a chilling letter admitting he failed in trying to take the life of the former president.
Routh also offered $150,000 for anyone who could ‘finish the job’ according to the note released by the Department of Justice on Monday and obtained by DailyMail.
‘This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whoever can complete the job,’ the letter reads.
It was addressed to ‘the world’ and said Trump had ‘ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unravelled’.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was forced to defend making the letter public after Republicans accused him of putting a ‘$150,000 bounty’ on Trump’s head.
Routh, 58, also had a list of Trump’s upcoming public appearances and had googled a route from Palm Beach, Fla., to Mexico.
He is set to appear in federal court on Monday for a detention hearing after the attempted assassination on September 15 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Ahead of that appearance, federal prosecutors submitted a written factual proffer with new details about the day Routh tried to assassinate Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course.
The document reveals a Secret Service agent was riding the fence line between Trump’s course and the public street, one hole ahead of the former president when he ‘spotted the partially obscured face of a man in the brush along the fence line.’
The man was later IDed as Routh.
The agent then noticed a rifle barrel sticking out and fired at the suspect.
The agent then ‘took cover behind a tree and reloaded his weapon, then looked up’ to see Routh was gone.
Routh was positioned directly in the line of sight of the 6th hole green. Trump was playing on the 5th hole at the time of the incident.
Secret Service agents hustled him off the course when they heard the shots fired at the 6th hole by their fellow agent.
After the agent fired, a witness saw Routh run across Summit Boulevard toward a black Nissan Xterra, bearing a Florida license plate, parked nearby.
In the vehicle, law enforcement found six cellphones, one of which ‘contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.’
Also in the vehicle were 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaiian driver’s license in Routh’s name and a list of Trump’s public appearances for August, September, and October.
