Whatever happened to the guy accused of trying to kill President Donald Trump?
There was the shooter who killed an audience member and grazed Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last year; he was killed by Secret Service agents seconds later. Last November, Justice Department officials also said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had hired an operative to plot to kill Trump; that man is believed to still be at large in Iran (Iran, for its part, has denied such a plot).
But there is one alleged, would-be assassin who is both alive and in federal custody.
Last fall, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, for what the FBI said was an apparent attempt on Trump’s life. His case — handled by the same Trump-appointed judge who heard his classified documents case — is proceeding quietly in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Routh’s alleged assassination plot — taking place just two months after the first attempt on Trump’s life — quickly became emblematic of how dire heightened political divisions leading up to the 2024 election had gotten. That polarization beget greater tensions and even conspiracy theories, which Trump himself capitalized on to the detriment of the public, according to Yotam Ophir, a University at Buffalo professor of communications whose research focuses on misinformation and extremism.
“Trump was quick to politicize the attempts on his life and to attack the left for inciting violence,” the author of “Misinformation and Society” told Salon in an email. “America has been going through a very intense polarization and politicization in recent years, making the public more likely to accept unfounded accusations against the other side, while also incentivizing politicians and other elites (e.g., media personalities) to capitalize on that and use partisan language to score political points and harm the opposition.”
Routh himself appeared to be a disgruntled centrist, a former registered Democrat — now unaffiliated with either party — turned 2016 Trump voter who would later vote in the 2024 Democratic primary while voicing support for ex-Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. Routh also has an extensive criminal record, including several felony convictions between 2002 and 2010, predating his arrest last September.
On Sept. 15, 2024, a Secret Service agent noticed “what appeared to be a rifle poking out of the tree line” while surveying the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club course during Trump’s golfing session, the criminal complaint said. The agent would fire their weapon in the rifle’s direction.
Around the same time, a witness saw a man flee from the area and take off in a Nissan SUV, according to the complaint. Officers from the Palm Beach County and Martin County Sheriff’s Offices would locate and stop the SUV about an hour later and arrest Routh. The witness identified Routh as the same individual who fled the golf club, while cell phone records showed that Routh’s phone was in the vicinity of the tree line area at the time the agent noticed the rifle.
A federal grand jury indicted Routh on five charges on Sept. 24, 2024: attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate; possessing a firearm during a crime of violence; assaulting a federal officer; possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon; and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to life in prison.
During his arraignment on Sept. 30, Routh pleaded not guilty. He has been detained at FDC Miami pending trial ever since. A public defender for Routh, Kristy Militello, did not respond to requests for comment.
The case appears to be progressing steadily and is still in its pretrial discovery period, where the parties share relevant documents and evidence, court records show. Presiding U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled two pre-trial conferences for early August and September 2025, setting the trial’s official start date for Sept. 8.
Notably, the presiding judge is the same Trump-appointee who oversaw the president’s classified documents case before dismissing it last year. Cannon faced heavy scrutiny during Trump’s federal prosecution over his alleged retention of national security documents from legal experts, who accused her of unnecessarily delaying the case by entertaining the Trump legal team’s tactics.
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Rourth’s legal team, for their part, filed a motion in October to have Cannon recused from the case, citing Trump’s appointment of her, praise of her rulings in his favor and, later, Cannon’s past friendship with a prosecutor on the case.
“This motion presumes that this Court would preside over this case impartially,” the filing said. “However, given the heightened stakes and the public scrutiny, there should not be any doubts about even the appearance of impartiality of the presiding judge.”
That effort ultimately failed, with Cannon rejecting the claims and denying the motion.
The DOJ also filed a motion in the case in October asking that the court block some of the discovery materials from dissemination to the public to protect civilian witnesses and other sensitive information, citing the public and media interest in the case and Routh’s own desire for “the spotlight.”
“A conspiracy theory, as scary as it may be, offers some comfort in the form of order and clear explanations.”
Routh, the government said, published a book that included a call for Trump’s assassination, drafted multiple letters to various media outlets to discuss his views, wrote a separate letter announcing a $150,000 bounty for someone to kill Trump and — while in jail in September — informed his daughter during a phone call that he wanted addresses of several news agencies to mail letters to them.
“All of this lends credence to the United States’ good faith belief that discovery materials left in Routh’s possession outside the presence of his attorneys would be improperly disseminated to the media and general public for reasons inconsistent with the fair administration of justice and the spirit of the Standing Discovery Order,” the filing reads.
That request was granted, in part, and does not appear to have been challenged since the Trump administration assumed control over the Justice Department.
In the immediate aftermath of the thwarted attempt, Routh himself became the subject of widespread rightwing conspiracy theories. Far-right influencers attempted to link the plot to Ukraine due to Routh’s vocal support for the Eastern European nation. Some tried to connect him to asset management giant BlackRock as they did with slain-Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, who inadvertently appeared in the background of a BlackRock commercial. Others argued that the assassination plan was an inside job, given that Routh would have had to have known Trump would be golfing that day.
The conspiratorial hubbub reflects what Ophir calls a “proportionality bias,” the idea that big events must have grand plans behind them, despite the reality being that “life is often arbitrary and we are more fragile than we want to admit.”
“We strive for order and meaning (some of us more than others) and we really struggle to accept how vulnerable we all are, to death, to crime, to a deadly virus,” Ophir said. “A conspiracy theory, as scary as it may be, offers some comfort in the form of order and clear explanations. If we know who to blame, maybe we also know how to solve the problem.”
“It’s easier to blame the other political side and to hope that taking care of them will take care of the problem,” he added.
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The trial was initially set to begin in November 2024 but was first continued to February 2025 at the Justice Department’s request due to the complexity of the ongoing investigation and the high volume of discovery, which the department said includes hundreds of interviews, reports and photographs; body camera footage and the contents of multiple electronic devices as well as multiple forensic examinations and more than one hundred subpoenas issued. In another December 2024 motion, Routh sought a trial date no earlier than December 2025, citing a need for “sufficient time to review discovery and evaluate potential defenses.”
The court granted the request in part, calling Routh’s requested trial date “excessive given the facts and circumstances.”
Since then, the case has progressed normally, with paperless orders from the most recent status conference and submission dates for court filings indicating it remains on schedule for the September trial date.
But Routh now has even more legal problems.
In April, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced state-level charges against Routh after concluding its own investigation into the alleged attempted assassination. Those charges are attempted first-degree murder and terrorism, the Republican said in a post to X.
“We can not allow justice to be delayed or denied,” Uthmeier said in an accompanying video, which also accused the Biden administration of working to block the state’s investigation into the incident. “And thanks to the president, our U.S. attorney general and the FBI director, we are moving forward in our pursuit. Our state-wide prosecutors will work to hold this evil man accountable and keep Florida safe, strong and free.”
Uthmeier’s office did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
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Meanwhile, Routh’s defense filed a last-ditch effort to have the final two firearm charges against him dropped under a Second Amendment claim. Cannon, again, handily denied the motion in May.
According to the docket, the judge most recently ruled on the Justice Department’s requests to preclude “legally prohibited and factually baseless defenses” and admit potential evidence.
Per Cannon’s previously outlined schedule, the next major date in the case is July 28, when the government’s exhibit and witness list, both parties’ jury selection questions and proposed jury instructions are due.
The Justice Department declined to weigh in on the status of the case, with a spokesperson stating that it does not comment on ongoing litigation.
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