Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old Democrat who attempted to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump at a Florida golf club on Sunday, was reported to federal authorities at least twice. Most recently, a woman who worked as a nurse in Ukraine, to which Routh has deep ties, told U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers he was the most dangerous American she encountered in the Eastern European country.
In an hourlong interview with CBP officers at Dulles International Airport in June 2022, Chelsea Walsh presented a notebook with Routh at the top of a list of Americans known for “Overall Predatory Behavior (or antisocial traits)” in Ukraine.
“‘Of all the people on there, Ryan Routh should be number one,’” she told CBP. Routh was also the sole name on Walsh’s list of “People who have been arrested in Ukraine.”
The 58-year-old, who has a truck with a ‘Biden-Harris’ bumper sticker at his address and repeated Democratic talking points about Trump threatening democracy on social media, was also reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2019. Agents heard Routh was in possession of a firearm despite being a felon, but they simply referred the matter to local law enforcement and closed it.
Routh targeted Trump with a scoped SKS rifle—a firearm of Soviet origin rare in America but still common in Ukraine and other former Soviet Socialist Republics. The U.S. Secret Service (USSS) spotted Routh in a bush and shot at him before he could open fire, but did not hit him, allowing him to escape. Local law enforcement later took him into custody.
The USSS claims the would-be assassin never had a line of sight on Trump, although the former president does appear to have come within the effective range of the SKS when Routh was detected.
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