US to seek attempted assassination charge against man accused of staking out Trump at golf course
The man accused in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump wrote a note months earlier saying that he intended to kill the former president
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The man accused in the assassination attempt of Donald Trump at a golf course in Florida left behind a note detailing his plans to kill the former president and kept in his car a handwritten list of dates and venues where Trump was to appear, the Justice Department said Monday.
Trump complained that the current holding charges against the man were too light, but prosecutors indicated much more serious attempted assassination charges were coming.
The new allegations about the note were included in a detention memo filed ahead of a hearing Monday at which federal prosecutors argued that Ryan Wesley Routh should remain locked up as a flight risk and a threat to public safety. U.S. Magistrate Ryon McCabe agreed, saying the “weight of the evidence against the defendant is strong” and ordered him to stay behind bars.
The latest details were meant to bolster the Justice Department's contention that the 58-year-old suspect had engaged in a premeditated plan to kill Trump, a plot officials say was thwarted by a Secret Service agent who spotted a rifle poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing and then opened fire in Routh's direction.
