Posted on 09/16/2024 5:23:39 AM PDT by Red Badger
The man in custody in connection with what is being described as a second attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump was vocal about U.S. support for Ukraine and has a long criminal and civil court history, including a conviction for possessing a machine gun.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was taken into custody after Secret Service agents fired shots at him at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, three senior law enforcement sources said. In 2002, court records show, he was convicted of possessing a weapon of mass destruction — a machine gun.
In that case, a man named Ryan Routh, 36 at the time, allegedly led authorities on a vehicle chase before he holed up at a roofing company in Greensboro, North Carolina, according to an account by the Greensboro News & Record.
A person named Ryan Routh resided for decades in North Carolina, property records show. Most recently, a Ryan Routh lived in the small coastal community of Kaaawa on Oahu’s eastern shore in Hawaii. Authorities there did not immediately respond to an inquiry about any possible contacts with Routh.
After the 2002 arrest, authorities said they found the suspect in possession of a fully automatic machine gun, according to the Greensboro News & Record. The arrest coincides with North Carolina criminal court records that include Routh's conviction for possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
Records also show convictions for carrying a concealed weapon, possession of stolen property and hit-and-run. In those cases, which included misdemeanor convictions for violations such as resisting an officer and driving on a suspended license, the defendant received a suspended sentence and parole or probation.
There is no record of time spent in state prison related to those cases in the early 2000s.
Court records show more than 100 criminal counts have been filed against Ryan Routh in North Carolina, most in Guilford County, which underlies Greensboro. The exact outcome of each case was not immediately clear.
The court records for a person named Ryan Routh also show a 2003 divorce, as well as multiple civil judgments after contractors and individuals sued a roofing company he helped run.
Routh told the publication Semafor last year that he was director of a group he called International Volunteer Center as part of his attempts to support Ukraine's war against Russia.
Routh spoke of his frustration with Ukraine over what he said were roadblocks to admitting foreign fighters, including Afghan commandos, who either volunteered or were available to join Ukraine's war effort.
“Ukraine is very often hard to work with," he told Semafor. "They’re afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy."
In an interview with Newsweek in 2022, Routh said he was 56 at the time and that he was from North Carolina and had flown to Ukraine from Hawaii. He complained about U.S. leadership as it related to Ukraine and urged greater support for the country from the U.S. government.
"This conflict is definitely black and white," he said. "This is about good versus evil."
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, after Trump's term in the White House. Trump has promoted a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election and has refused to say whether he wants Ukraine to win its war against Russia. He has also expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There was no immediate indication that Trump's stance on Ukraine motivated Routh's alleged actions Sunday.
It also appears Routh, while he was living in Hawaii, made several small contributions to the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue, including 19 payments in 2019 and 2020 in amounts from $1 to $25, according to Federal Election Commission records. ActBlue did not immediately respond Sunday night to an emailed request for comment about the donations.
On Sunday, Palm Beach County State’s Attorney Dave Aronberg told MSNBC that the federal government is taking over prosecution in the West Palm Beach case, with the U.S. Justice Department expected to file any charges.
He argued that a defendant would not have to open fire for the case to include a charge of attempted assassination.
Aronberg said it was his understanding that Routh was “lying in wait” for Trump before Secret Service agents spotted him. Routh had aimed at the agent who fired at him, Aronberg said; the exact chronology of what took place is still unclear.
Routh was “pretty quiet” and “pretty compliant” after a Martin County sheriff’s traffic unit took him into custody on Interstate 95 one county to the north of Palm Beach, Aronberg said.
Machine guns are not illegal. Select fire rifles are prohibitively expensive and require a tax stamp, but they aren’t illegal.
Where are the Rats calls for Gun Control?
P
Of course, the most salient fact omitted: The nutjob supports and votes for Democrats.
I'm curious as to what kind and when he obtained it, since post 1986, the cost of full autos have skyrocketed....
Conviction of felony? Gee does that mean who should not have a firearm?
Ping!........................
IF THIS IS TRUE...HE WAS ALSO IN A BLACKROCK COMMERCIAL!
That explains how Kid Rock legally possessed a machine gun to blow apart a case of Budweiser.
He was free on the streets despite extensive criminal record, But let a 90 year old woman protest at an abortion clinic, and she goes to prison, or a 80 year old grandma protest at the Capitol bui,ding and the authorities will spent their days hunting her down and Imprisoning her.
Once again, a hate filled man with vast criminal record is free on the streets to wreak havoc at will, but conservative moms who have done nothing more serious than raise their voices in opposition to filthy foul school indoctrination infesting our schools are labeled “Domestic Terrorists” by our government.
Who provided Routh with Trump’s itinerary?
It should be made illegal for any democrat to possess, own, use or borrow any firearm of any type, including BB guns and water pistols. They’re too unhinged, mentally imbalanced making them a threat to a sane society.
His social media reads like a Biden/Harris campaign speech.
Whoever they are, I don’t think that they are going to rely on this crazy guy’s silence.
dnyuz.com
September 16, 2024
New York Times Reporter Revisits Earlier Interview With Suspect at Trump Golf Course
Last year I was working on an article about foreign fighters and volunteers in Ukraine. The piece focused on people who were not qualified to be allowed anywhere near the battlefield in a U.S.-led war and yet were fighting on the front against Russia, with access to weapons and military equipment. Among the people I interviewed: Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man whom the F.B.I. is investigating in what it is calling an assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump on Sunday.
I was put in touch with Mr. Routh through an old colleague and friend from Kabul, Najim Rahim. Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Mr. Routh from a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine.
Mr. Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban. And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Mr. Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front. (Anything, even war, was better than the conditions in Iran for Afghans after the Taliban retook Kabul in August of 2021.)
There were a few complications. Mr. Routh, a former construction worker from Greensboro, N. C., said he never fought in Ukraine himself — he was too old and had no military experience. But like many foreign volunteers who showed up at Ukraine’s border in the war’s early months, he was eager to cast aside his former life for something far more exciting and make a name for himself.
“In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians,” he told me, his voice urgent, exasperated and a little suspicious over the phone. When I talked to Mr. Routh in March of last year, he had compiled a list of hundreds of Afghans spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan whom he wanted to fly, somehow, to Ukraine. Mr. Routh told one Afghan he was helping: “I am just a civilian.”
My conversation with Mr. Routh was brief. He was in Washington, D.C., he said, and had planned for a two-hour meeting with some congressmen about Ukraine. (It’s unclear if that meeting ever happened.) By the time I got off the phone with Mr. Routh some minutes later, it was clear he was in way over his head. He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it took to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight.
I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous, but the tone in Mr. Routh’s voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine’s war effort, no matter what. Like many of the volunteers I interviewed, he fell off the map again. Until Sunday.
The “New York Times Reporter Revisits Earlier Interview With Suspect at Trump Golf Course” appeared first on New York Times.
And then this year he ends up in Florida.
This guy does not seem to have a job.
Where does he get the money for all of this travel?
He has an extensive criminal record and no prison time.
It sounds suspiciously like this guy is an FBI or CIA asset.
Where did he get the money to buy a machine gun and a AK-47?
Someone is supplying this individual with a substantial amount of money.
And that SUV he was driving ain’t cheap..............
That means he COULDN’T have a firearm, so this all has to be some kind of mistake or setup by the OrangeManMaga People.
/s
Don't let this one tie you up. You could have built a full auto AK for a couple hundred bucks 20 years ago. Illegally. That is the big cost difference.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.