What to know about the man charged with trying to assassinate Trump in Florida
US District Judge Aileen Cannon signed off Thursday on Ryan Routh's request to represent himself during his trial but said court-appointed attorneys need to remain as standby counsel. The judge told Routh that she believed it was a bad idea for Routh to represent himself, but he wouldn't be dissuaded. Routh, who has described the extent of his education as two years of college after earning his GED certificate, told Cannon that he understood and would be ready. On Friday, the judge was hearing a motion from prosecutors to limit unrelated evidence at trial. 'As the Court knows, Routh has been very explicit in his desire to turn this trial into a circus where his supposed good character is weighed against the President's,' the prosecutors wrote.
The 59-year-old Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent, plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press. In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova, and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he had a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a weapon of mass destruction, which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch-long fuse. In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence.
Authorities said Routh tried to assassinate Trump, who was running for his second term last September as the GOP presidential nominee, while he played golf at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Routh is facing five felony counts in federal court in Fort Pierce, Florida. They include attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm to carry out a violent crime, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
If the judge's name sounds familiar, it's because she presided over another high-profile case involving Trump – the classified documents case. Last year, Cannon sided with Trump's lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the US Justice Department. Cannon's ruling halted a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the president faced before he returned to office last January. Cannon was a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020.
Trump was not hurt in the incident; he was fine. US Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing golf noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course roughly 400 yards away. An agent fired, and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming, and a GoPro camera. He was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county. Last September's assassination attempt took place just nine weeks after Trump survived another attempt on his life in Pennsylvania.
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