What started as a regular round of golf for former president Donald Trump on Sunday turned into another close call on his life.
The former president was on the fifth fairway of his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida when a lone Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a rifle sticking through the fence line near the sixth hole.
The concealed sniper was Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old construction worker with a bizarre past, checkered with failed schemes and felonies.
What started as a regular round of golf for former president Donald Trump on Sunday turned into another close call on his life.
The alleged gunman has been identified as registered Democrat Ryan Wesley Routh, 58
The FBI now claims Routh never had the Republican candidate in his line of sight – nor fired a shot.
But that hardly absolves the security detail tasked with protecting the former president of blame, as Routh – armed with a long-range, scoped rifle – was able to get within 500 yards of Trump.
Now, DailyMail.com is investigating the circumstances of Trump’s second close brush with calamity, the multitude of unanswered questions and just how the Secret Service could fail the former president – yet again.
An inside job?
‘The biggest question to answer is: How did the would-be assassin know to be at that location at that time?’ said former FBI Director Chris Swecker on Sunday.
‘There are only three possible answers: He guessed and got very lucky; he conducted surveillance on Trump and followed him to the golf course; or he had inside information about Trump’s schedule. The last answer is scary and has implications that another person was involved.’
Trump’s arrival at the course Sunday morning in a large motorcade would have been obvious to anyone scoping out the property.
Still, whether Routh had any prior warning of the former president’s plans is unknown.
Marin County, Florida Sheriff Will Snyder said how Routh worked out where Trump would be is the ‘million-dollar question’.
How did security fail?
The former president frequently golfs at his sprawling 27-hole, 200-acre Trump International Golf Course West Palm Beach, which is a stone’s throw from his Mar-a-Lago home.
But Trump’s Sunday outing – with his friend, Republican donor and real estate investor Steve Witkoff – wasn’t on his public schedule.
For that reason, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Monday Secret Service agents did not conduct a security sweep of the course prior to Trump’s golf game.
‘Yesterday was an off-the-record movement,’ Row said. ‘The president wasn’t even really supposed to go there.’
If agents had swept the property, they may have discovered a Routh’s black Nissan Rouge parked along the eastern perimeter of the club.
At 1:35 pm on Sunday, an agent saw Routh’s weapon and opened fire causing the gunman to drop his rifle. The suspect then fled the scene in a vehicle, only to be captured less than an hour later by local law enforcement.
Private security expert and former Department of Homeland Security adviser Carrie Bachner called the incident a ‘100 percent’ security failure.
Why did Routh choose the sixth hole?
Investigators analyzed data obtained from Routh’s cellphone provider which indicated that he first arrived in the vicinity of the golf course at 1:59 am Sunday morning.
His device’s location was shown to be near the tree line where he was confronted by the Secret Service agent.
This means there Routh was in the area for at least 12 hours.
Photographers have long been able to get close to Trump while he’s playing at the West Palm Beach course, but they generally do not collect near the sixth hole.
Though that’s where law enforcement discovered a sniper’s nest – complete with a GoPro camera, two backpacks, and his rifle.
The bags were filled with ceramic tiles that investigators suspect were intended to provide him cover from gunfire.
As of Monday, the FBI hasn’t released any new details on what Routh was doing during those 12 hours.
What was in Routh’s mind?
The gunman’s motive is still a mystery and the investigation is in its early stages.
But in the last 48 hours, a clearer picture of Routh’s life has begun to emerge – including frequent run-ins with the law, a slew of anti-Trump political posts of late and a bizarre commitment to the Ukrainian war effort.
Oran Routh, his 35-year-old son, told DailyMail.com that his father hated Trump as ‘every reasonable person does’. But insisted that his father was not capable of violence.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Monday Secret Service agents did not conduct a security sweep of the course prior to Trump’s golf game.
In 2016, Routh voted for Trump. Then in 2024, he backed Nikki Haley’s run for the Republican nomination.
However, public financial records also show that Routh donated small amounts of money to Democrats in 2020.
In 2023, Routh self-published a book ‘Ukraine’s Unwinnable War’ in which he called on Iran to assassinate the former president.
In his rambling prose, he also called the Republican nominee a ‘buffoon’, a ‘fool’ and ‘brainless’.
Was Routh on law enforcement’s radar?
Routh’s personal commitment to the Ukrainian war effort date back to at least 2022, when he traveled to the war-torn nation and tried to recruit foreign soldiers to help fight against Russia.
Yet, Routh’s work there negative attracted the attention of both Ukrainians and Americans.
In fact, he acted so erratically during his years as a pro-Ukraine activist that Americans who encountered him during this period flagged his behavior to US authorities.
Chelsea Walsh, a nurse who met Routh on several occasions in Kyiv, said his violent threats worried her so much she expressed her concerns to a Customs and Border Protection officer in an hourlong interview when returned to the US in June 2022.
Walsh, told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, that Routh was among the most dangerous Americans she confronted during her time there.
In the last 48 hours, a clearer picture of Routh’s life has begun to emerge – including frequent run-ins with the law and a slew of anti-Trump political posts of late.
Sunday’s incident comes just two months after another attempted assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s right ear, narrowly missing a kill shot by fractions of an inch.
Routh also tried to join Ukrainian frontline forces, but was rejected by the military and branded ‘delusional’ by volunteers he came across.
How did Routh obtain a weapon?
Routh has an extensive criminal record of at least 100 criminal filings dating back to 1998, including multiple felonies.
One local newspaper report in 2002 noted that he barricaded himself in a business and had a three-hour stand-off with police officers in the town of Greensboro, North Carolina.
In another incident, he was charged with misdemeanors including a hit-and-run, resisting arrest, and a concealed weapons violation.
After such an extensive criminal history, Routh was not legally allowed to possess a firearm.
Yet, court documents released Monday indicate he was in possession of a SKS-style rifle – which is a semi-automatic weapon by Russian design – with an obliterated serial number.
The weapon was modified with a scope for long-distance targeting.
The rifle isn’t manufactured in Florida, which has led the FBI to believe he obtained it from a different state or abroad.
Why was Trump’s security still so thin?
Palm Beach County, Florida Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters Sunday that if Trump was president, he would have had more security – and even claimed that the president’s protection was sufficient.
‘Look, at the end of the day, the system worked,’ he said.
Law enforcement discovered a sniper’s nest complete with a GoPro camera, two backpacks, and his rifle where Routh had been hiding on the perimeter of the course.
The stashed bags were filled with ceramic tiles that investigators suspect were intended to provide him cover from gunfire.
However, Secret Service Strategy Director Matthew Noyes admitted after July’s assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, that the agency has been ‘spread too thin.’
He cited hiring problems and a lack of resources.
Subsequently, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe claimed that he ‘ordered a paradigm shift’ after the Butler shooting, during which a 20-year-old was able to climb onto a rooftop with a clear line of sight 130 yards away from the president.
But, just two months after the Butler incident, there are questions as to why these blatant security issues haven’t been resolved.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is demanding that an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sunday’s shooting be incorporated into an ongoing probe into the failures in Butler.
Additionally, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced that his administration is conducting an independent probe into the incident at Trump’s golf course.