The man charged in the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Florida golf course left a note saying he intended to kill the former president and kept a handwritten list of dates and locations where Trump would appear in court in his car, the Justice Department said and the Associated Press reported.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I didn’t succeed,” the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, wrote in the note, included in a package left at the home of an unnamed witness before his arrest. “I did everything I could and put all the courage I could into it. Now it’s your turn to finish the job, and I will offer $150,000 to whoever can do it.” Routh, 58, returns to federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, for a bail hearing.
The note, marked “Dear World,” was placed in a box that also contained ammunition, a metal pipe and other items and was not opened by the person, who authorities have not identified, until after Routh was arrested, after which he contacted law enforcement.
Ryan Routh was arrested near a Trump-owned golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, after a Secret Service agent spotted him crouching in some bushes. He did not fire a single shot. The officer spotted him, shot him, and he fled in a pickup truck before being arrested by police minutes later. According to the district attorney’s office, Routh had been loitering in the area for nearly 12 hours when he was discovered.
Authorities who searched his car found a list with dates in August, September and October and locations where Trump had appeared or was scheduled to appear, prosecutors said.
