This screenshot shows Ryan Wesley Routh at a rally in April 2022 where he called on foreign leaders and international organizations to help provide humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of Ukrainians from Mariupol.
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The man arrested in connection with what the FBI said was an apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has a long criminal record and has recently become fixated on world politics, particularly Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The suspect, identified by local authorities as Ryan Wesley Routh, was arrested on Sunday afternoon on Interstate 95 near West Palm Beach, Florida. Authorities say there had previously been an attack on Trump at his golf club. It would be the second attack in the last nine weeks.
The Secret Service said an agent stationed one hole ahead of Trump at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach spotted a rifle sticking out of a fence. The suspect with the rifle was hiding in the bushes about 300 to 500 yards from the Republican presidential candidate.
Routh did not fire a shot, but the agent opened fire on him, Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe said on Monday. Routh fled in a black Nissan, which authorities found on the highway a short time later thanks to an eyewitness tip.
Routh was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and possession of a firearm with an obscured serial number.
At his first appearance in federal court in West Palm Beach on Monday morning, Routh — wearing a navy blue prison jumpsuit and handcuffed — appeared calm, respectful and in good spirits, and was seen at times laughing with his public defender.
The judge told Routh he was entitled to a public defender because “he has little or no assets.” Routh said he has no money or savings and reported an income of $3,000 a week, but did not identify the source. He said he owns two trucks in Hawaii and helps support his 25-year-old son.
Routh will remain in custody until his arraignment on September 30.
Public records, a self-published book and previous interviews paint a picture of the 58-year-old as a Trump supporter turned critic who passionately defended Ukraine in its war with Russia and even traveled there in the hope of joining the fight.
Here’s what we know about him so far.
He has a criminal record dating back decades
Routh spent most of his adult life in North Carolina before moving to Hawaii several years ago.
According to his LinkedIn page, he graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1998 with a degree in mechanical engineering.
North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records show Routh has a long history of run-ins with the law, including a 2002 conviction on charges of possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
An article from December 2002 in the Greensboro News & Records reports an incident in which Routh was stopped during a traffic stop on a Sunday evening. He “put his hand on a firearm” and drove to his roofing business, where he barricaded himself for three hours. The weapon of mass destruction charge referred to a “fully automatic machine gun,” the newspaper reported.
Routh was charged with several other misdemeanors and felonies between 2001 and 2010, including hit-and-run, carrying a concealed weapon and possession of stolen goods.
Separately, North Carolina court records list Routh as a defendant in more than half a dozen lawsuits between 1991 and 2016, including cases involving delinquent taxes and bad checks.
Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page that he had “given away all the meager remains of myself in North Carolina and moved to Oahu.” According to the Honolulu Star Advertiserwhich relied on public records.
The newspaper cited “law enforcement sources” as saying Honolulu police have records of four interactions with Routh: two in 2019 – including an incident in which he and two others allegedly occupied a property – and two more in 2021 when Routh said he was attacked by a resident whose home he was working on as a handyman.
Routh describes himself as the owner of Camp Box Honolulu, a company that builds portable storage units and tiny homes.
“We cannot stand by and watch some of our friends and neighbors around us struggle when we ourselves are smart enough to find our own solutions to our own problems,” the company’s website states. “With common sense and American ingenuity, and the resources at our disposal, we can work together to create our own happy places.”
He once supported Trump, but recently donated to the Democrats
North Carolina voter records list Routh as unaffiliated, but they also show that he voted in person in the March 2024 Democratic primary.
He is also listed as a voter who participated in the 2008 and 2012 parliamentary elections and the 2009 local elections.
Routh has donated to political causes in the past, Federal Election Commission records show. Between September 2019 and March 2020, he donated nearly 20 times to the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue – in amounts ranging from $1 to $25.
In a self-published book published in 2023, Routh referred to his past support for Trump and wrote that he had to take some of the blame for Trump’s election as president, “but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake.”
In the book, he described the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, as a “catastrophe … perpetrated by Donald Trump and his undemocratic crew.”
Routh’s 291-page book, The unwinnable war in Ukraine: The fatal mistake of democracy, the abandonment of the world and its citizens – Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, World War III and the end of humanitydeals with a topic that has obviously occupied Routh a lot in recent years.
Routh is an enthusiastic supporter of the defense of Ukraine
Routh pledged strong support to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022, and it was his mission to bring foreigners – himself included – to the front lines.
His goal was to “fight for freedom and human rights,” he wrote in his book.
Routh traveled to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv this year, but was told that, given his age and lack of military experience, he was “not an ideal candidate,” as he himself put it. Newsweek Romania in 2022.
“So Plan B was to come here to Kyiv and campaign to bring more people here,” he said.
He has since used social media to recruit foreigners to fight in Ukraine and has spoken about these efforts in media interviews.
Routh said The New York Times in March 2023 that he was looking for recruits among Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban, with the aim of buying passports via Pakistan (“because it is such a corrupt country”) and bringing them – in some cases illegally – from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. Just described Routh as a “former construction worker from Greensboro, NC… who spent several months in Ukraine last year.”
In the same month, he complained to Semafor about the lack of support from the Ukrainian government, which he said was too strict in accepting foreign soldiers, especially from Afghanistan, because of fears that they could be Russian spies.
“I have held meetings with partners (the Ukrainian Defense Ministry) every week and still have not been able to persuade them to agree to issue a single visa,” said Routh, who was identified by Semafor as the head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine – “a private organization that helps foreigners who want to support the war effort to establish contact with military units and aid organizations.”
A representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion told CNN that although Routh had contacted the Legion several times online, he “was never part of the Legion and did not cooperate with us in any way.”
“His messages can best be described as delusional,” said Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer in the foreigners coordination department of the Land Forces Command. “He offered us a large number of recruits from different countries, but it was obvious to us that his offers were not realistic. We didn’t even respond – there was nothing to respond to.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the apparent assassination attempt on Trump in an X-post on Monday, saying: “There is no place for political violence anywhere in the world.”
When asked about the incident on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it showed that “playing with fire” had consequences – an obvious allusion to US support for Ukraine.
Routh’s family defended him
One of Routh’s sons, Adam, told Reuters immediately after the incident that he did not believe his father would do such a thing.
Another, Oran, told CNN that it was not his father’s nature to “do anything crazy, let alone violent.”
“I have no comment other than a character profile of him as a loving and caring father and honest, hard-working man,” Oran Routh said in a statement.
