Man pictured near Harris rally was not Trump assassination plot suspect

Accounts on X are claiming Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect charged in an alleged plot to assassinate Donald Trump, was filmed days earlier attending a Kamala Harris rally in North Carolina. But the claims rely on a blurry video; the original, higher-resolution footage, obtained by AFP, clearly identifies a different unknown man.

"UPDATE: 2nd Trump Assassination Attempt. The Shooter, Ryan Routh, is believed to have been spotted at Kamala Harris' North Carolina Rally on September 12 when they bussed everyone in," says a September 17, 2024 post on X from "MJTruthUltra," an account that has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The post includes a video zooming in on a man with a backwards hat and a salmon pink shirt - whose face is obscured by the clip's low image quality - outside of the Democratic presidential nominee's rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Similar posts zipped across X , amplified by other QAnon influencers and far-right personality Matt Wallace , who has previously spread other disinformation . The video also circulated on other platforms , including Facebook , Instagram , TikTok and Telegram - with some users alleging that the man's shirt matched the salmon-colored top that Routh wore as he was arrested September 15.

Routh , 58, was charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number after US Secret Service agents with Trump's security detail thwarted what would have been the second attempt on the former president's life in as many months. An agent saw what appeared to be the barrel of a rifle pointing out of a tree line on the perimeter of Trump's West Palm Beach golf course, court documents said.

A self-employed builder most recently based in Hawaii, Routh is originally from North Carolina and spent much of his life there. He is actively registered as an unaffiliated voter in the state. Public records and his chaotic writings online reveal a complicated political history , though he voted in North Carolina's 2024 Democratic primary, and a truck parked outside his Hawaii home is stamped with a Biden-Harris bumper sticker.

But the hazy video circulating online shows a different man at Vice President Harris's rally.

AFP obtained a higher-quality version of the footage from the Democratic activist who first posted it to X, before deleting it amid the spread of false claims about the buses in the clip. The activist, who requested anonymity out of concern for his privacy, told AFP he recorded it ahead of Harris's Charlotte rally and that the man depicted is "definitely not" Routh.

AFP could not identify the man but observed that he appears gray-haired and has a beard, an earring and a ring resembling a wedding band on his finger.

Meanwhile, Routh appeared clean-shaven with colored hair in his mug shot and the photos and videos taken during his arrest, with no piercing in his ear or ring on his finger - though he had previously sported facial hair when AFP interviewed him demonstrating in Ukraine in 2022.

The man in the clip is also wearing a short-sleeve shirt with a front pocket, contradicting the online claims that he had on the same shirt Routh was wearing as he was caught fleeing Trump's golf club. Routh's shirt was long-sleeve and bore a blue logo.

Reuben Moreton , a facial identification expert who previously worked as a forensic examiner in the United Kingdom, analyzed the images for AFP (archived here ).

In addition to the ear piercing, Moreton noted "a high number of dissimilarities" between the unnamed man's ear and nose as compared with Routh's. Moreton also identified differences with their facial hair growth pattern and creases.

"The findings provide strong support that the images depict different people," Moreton said in a September 19 email.

Moreton told AFP that a facial recognition algorithm he used separately returned results that are "strongly indicative that the images are of different people."

Other facial recognition experts also pointed to differences in the shape and structure of their ears.

"The right ear alone is pretty telling," said one expert affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's facial and iris identification subcommittee , who agreed that the man in the video shared online is likely not Routh.

AFP reached out to the Harris campaign and North Carolina Democratic Party for comment, but no responses were forthcoming.