Key Points
- Ryan Routh has been charged with gun crimes as investigations into Donald Trump assassination attempt continue.
- Routh is a convicted felon who tried to recruit foreigners to fight in the war in Ukraine.
- He once supported Trump but later said he had “misjudged” the former US president.
Routh was charged with two gun-related crimes in a US federal court on Monday (local time), a day after being spotted with a rifle hiding in the bushes at the former US president’s golf course in Florida.
Who is Ryan Routh?
“Putin is a terrorist, and he needs to be ended, so we need everybody from around the globe to stop what they are doing and come here now and support the Ukrainians to end this war,” he told AFP, one cheek painted in the blue and yellow of Ukraine’s flag, the other in red.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested after US Secret Service agents “opened fire on a gunman” carrying an AK-47 style rifle near the boundary of Donald Trump’s Florida golf course. Source: Getty / AFPTV
Posts on his X account — which has since been suspended — showed he was willing to “fight and die” in Ukraine, The New York Times reported, and his Amazon book blurb speaks of having thousands of Afghan and Syrian fighters ready to take up arms — if only the United States and Ukraine would allow them to do so.
A representative from Ukraine’s foreign legion described Routh’s ideas to CNN as “delusional” and “not realistic”, saying that although he contacted them several times, he was never part of the unit for overseas volunteers.
Ryan Routh — activist or agitator?
CNN reported that he was arrested after being pulled over by police and allegedly putting his hand on a firearm, then barricading himself inside a business.
The US flag is often prominent in photos he shared on social media — wearing a shirt with a flag pattern, for instance, or having it sewn onto other items of clothing.
Law enforcement officials outside the Trump International Golf Club after the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Source: AAP / Lynne Sladky
His urge to take action also appears evident in his current business, which — according to a LinkedIn profile in his name — is a small outfit in Hawaii that builds “simple economical structures to help address the highest homelessness rate in the United States”.
His 291-page self-published book appears to have taken that desire to act and turned it into a rallying cry for people to take up arms in Ukraine.
He said the accusations against Routh in Florida do not “sound like the man I know”.