Ronald Rowe Jr, acting director of the Secret Service, said that once an agent detected Routh armed with a rifle, he discharged his firearm before the 58-year-old fled.
“He did not fire or get off any shots at our agent,” Rowe said. “With reports of gunfire, the former president’s close protection detail immediately evacuated the president to a safe location.”
Rowe also told reporters that Trump was “out of sight of the gunman” during his unscheduled visit to the golf club.
“The protective methodologies of the Secret Service were effective yesterday,” Rowe added.
Shortly after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks of golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads, according to The Washington Post.
The agents told him that if photographers with long-range lenses could capture images of the president on the course, potential gunmen could do the same.
Despite these warnings, Trump reportedly insisted that his clubs were safe and decided to keep golfing in them.
Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in what the FBI has called an “attempted assassination”, previously made a series of donations to Democratic presidential candidates in the 2020 elections, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The documents show that Routh donated to campaigns supporting Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Beto O’Rourke, and Tom Steyer.
The donations, which did not exceed $25, were made between September 2019 and March 2020, according to the records.
Ronald Rowe from the Secret Service said he has “ordered a paradigm shift”.
He said that the current methodologies work and described them as “sound”, but called on a reevaluation amid the current “dynamic threat environment”.
Earlier, he said that the Secret Service constantly evaluates their methodologies “based on threat.”
Ronald Rowe said that former president Donald Trump was not scheduled to be at the golf course on Sunday.
When reporters asked if Routh knew whether Trump was going to be at the golf course at that time, Rowe responded: “It’s an active investigation. I don’t have any information on that subject.”
Ronald Rowe Jr, acting director of the Secret Service, said that once an agent detected Routh armed with a rifle, he discharged his firearm before the 58-year-old fled.
“He did not fire or get off any shots at our agent,” Rowe said. “With reports of gunfire, the former president’s close protection detail immediately evacuated the president to a safe location.”
Rowe also told reporters that Trump was “out of sight of the gunman” during his unscheduled visit to the golf club.
“The protective methodologies of the Secret Service were effective yesterday,” Rowe added.
Jeffrey B Veltri, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, took the stage, stating that the agency is investigating the event as “an apparent assassination attempt of former president Trump”.
“We view this as extremely serious and are determined to provide as to what led up to the events that took place,” he said.
Veltri stated that Routh was the subject of an investigation in 2019 by the FBI based on a tip that he was in possession of a firearm.
“In the area of the tree line from where Routh fled, agents found a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a black plastic bag containing food,” Lapointe said.
He also said Routh was convicted of felonies in North Carolina in December 2002 and March 2010. Routh was prohibited from carrying a firearm amid these felonies, according to Lapointe.
US attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the southern district of Florida is providing an update about the apparent assassination attempt on former Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Lapointe confirmed that Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged with gun-related offenses. He had an appearance in court this morning in West Palm Beach.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader from Kentucky, issued a statement regarding the potential assassination attempt against Donald Trump, describing this week as “a time to reflect on the ways that our political process has been infected by reprehensible violence”.
“For the second time in as many months, law enforcement faces an even more urgent task: completing a thorough, swift and transparent investigation into the circumstances of yesterday’s close call,” he said.
“The American people deserve answers. They deserve assurance that a former President who tens of millions of Americans have nominated once again will receive every appropriate measure of security,” he added.
Federal prosecutors have brought gun charges against Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested yesterday in Florida after what investigators believe may have been a potential assassination attempt against Donald Trump. In charging documents, an FBI special agent said that Routh’s cellphone spent nearly 12 hours in the vicinity of the tree line at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, and that he had previously been convicted in North Carolina on a felony charge of possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction” after being found with a fully automatic gun. Trump sought to use the incident, in which he was not injured, to his advantage, telling Fox News that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were to blame because they’ve described him as a threat to democracy for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Here’s what else has happened today:
The sheriff’s office in Martin county, Florida, shared footage of the moment that Routh was arrested yesterday.
Biden spoke briefly to reporters about the incident, saying the Secret Service should be given more resources, perhaps personnel.
Harris said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt” targeting Trump.
In addition to blaming Democrats, Trump is fundraising off the potential assassination attempt.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, said more funding for the Secret Service could be included in a spending bill under negotiation with House Republicans.
Reuters reports that Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested yesterday for potentially trying to assassinate Donald Trump, was charged for possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction” in North Carolina in 2002 after being found with a fully automatic gun.
Reuters also found that Routh has a criminal history in the state that goes back to at least 1990, including for writing bad checks, traffic violations and possessing stolen goods.
Amid calls from across the political spectrum to give the Secret Service more resources after a potential second assassination attempt yesterday targeting Donald Trump, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer has hinted that the funds could be allocated as part of the latest round of spending negotiations.
“We all must do our part to ensure an incident like this does not happen again. This means that Congress has a responsibility to ensure the Secret Service and all law enforcement have the resources they need to do their jobs,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“So, as we continue the appropriations process, if the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared to provide it for them, possibly in the upcoming funding agreement.”
Congressional leaders are trying to pass some kind of funding agreement to keep the government running beyond 30 September, when the current authorizations expire. Democrats, who control the Senate, and Republicans, who hold a majority in the House, have not yet reached an agreement, with one of the sticking points being calls from Trump and some GOP lawmakers to also pass a bill that makes voting by non-citizens a federal crime. Here’s more on that:
Donald Trump is returning to X Spaces this evening for a broadcast on the social media platform’s live audio feature:
About a month ago, he held a nearly three-hour-long talk on Spaces with X’s chairman, Elon Musk, which was surprisingly light on news:
Before news of a potential second assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump broke, the New York Times reported on Sunday that John Roberts, the conservative chief justice of the supreme court, to encourage his colleagues to rule in favor of the former president on the question of his immunity that came before them earlier this year. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Anna Betts:
John Roberts Jr used his position as the US supreme court’s chief justice to urge his colleagues to rule quickly – and in favor – of Donald Trump ahead of the decision that granted him and other presidents immunity for official acts, according to a New York Times investigation published on Sunday.
The new report provides details about what was happening behind the scenes in the country’s highest court during the three recent supreme court decisions centering on – and generally favoring – the Republican former president.
Based on leaked memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders, the Times report suggests that Roberts – who was appointed to the supreme court during Republican George W Bush’s presidency – took an unusually active role in the three cases in question. And he wrote the majority opinions on all three.
In addition to the presidential immunity ruling, the decisions collectively barred states from removing any official – including Trump – from a federal ballot as well as declaring the government had overstepped with respect to obstruction of justice charges filed against participants of the 6 January 2021 attack that the former president’s supporters aimed at Congress.
The Times reported that last February, Roberts sent a memo to his fellow supreme court justices regarding the criminal charges against Trump for attempting to overturn the result of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general, issued a statement where he promised to “work tirelessly” and use “every available resource” in the investigation into the apparent attempted assassination on Donald Trump.
“We are grateful the former president is safe,” Garland’s statement reads.
The entire justice department – including the FBI, the US attorney’s office for the southern district of Florida, and the national security division – is coordinating closely with our law enforcement partners on the ground.
“We will work tirelessly to ensure accountability, and we will bring every available resource to bear in this investigation,” he added.
Here’s more from Joe Biden’s address to the National HBCU Week Conference in Philadelphia, during which he decried the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump and urged Americans to work together to stop the scourge of political violence.
The Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald Rowe Jr, was in Florida “assessing what happened and determining whether any further adjustments need to be made to ensure” Trump’s safety, AP quoted Biden as saying. He added:
America has suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin’s bullet. It solves nothing. It just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen.
Joe Biden has been speaking at a conference of historically Black colleges and universities in Philadelphia, during which he addressed the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Biden commended the Secret Service for their “expert handling of the situation”, per pool report. He said:
Let me just say there is no – and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, and those of you who know me know this – in America, there is no place for political violence.
A video posted to Facebook on Monday shows the arrest of the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump.
The body camera footage shared by the Martin county sheriff’s office shows Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, walking backward with his hands over his head on the side of a road before being handcuffed and led away by law enforcement.
The White House described a now-deleted post by Elon Musk on X as “irresponsible” after the tech mogul questioned why Donald Trump has faced two apparent assassination attempts while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not encountered any.
In a Sunday night post, Musk wrote: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” He later the deleted the post after intense backlash, claiming his comments were intended as a joke.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said:
As President Biden and Vice President Harris said after yesterday’s disturbing news, ‘there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country,’ and ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.’
“Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible,” the statement added.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
