Trump says DOJ and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on his life
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has released a statement regarding the investigation into the assassination attempt last week at his golf club in West Palm Beach.
"The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist," Trump wrote. "It's no wonder, since the DOJ and FBI have been coming after me nonstop with Weaponized Lawfare since I announced my first Historic Campaign for the Presidency."
Court documents released Monday reveal evidence in the case against Ryan Routh, including a letter apologizing for failing to assassinate the former president, written before the attempt .
Federal prosecutors submitted a written factual proffer to the court Monday to detail what the Federal Bureau of Investigation has found in their investigation thus far and to request a pretrial detention of Routh.
In the proffer, U.S. attorneys wrote that a witness contacted law enforcement on Wednesday, days after the attempt on Sunday, Sept. 15.
The witness said Routh had dropped off a box at his home several months prior. It's unclear in which state the witness lives. After learning about the assassination attempt at Trump International Golf Club, the man opened the box allegedly from Routh.
In it was a handwritten letter addressed to "The World" that said in part,
"This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job. Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president. U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand up for humanity."According to the court document, the letter also stated, "He [Trump] ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled."
The court document details that there were additional letters found in the box, along with the following items: ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools and four phones.
The FBI analysis found that Routh traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14.
On the day of the attempt, after the U.S. Secret Service located Routh in the bushes near the sixth hole with what was later determined to be a rifle protruding from a fence toward the course.
After an agent shot at him and Routh fled the scene in a Nissan Xterra, he was stopped by the Martin County Sheriff's Office on Interstate 95 North.
VIDEO RELEASED: Bodycam shows moment Martin County Sheriff's Office arrest suspect in apparent attempted assassination of Trump
During a car search, FBI agents found six cellphones.
One included a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
Two of the cellphones showed Routh's cell phone accessed cell towers near Trump International Golf Club and Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago on multiple days and times between Aug. 18 and Sept. 15.
Mar-a-Lago has been under heavy security since July following the first assassination attempt on Trump while at a rally in Pennsylvania.
There was also "a notebook with dozens of pages filled with names and phone numbers pertaining to Ukraine, discussions about how to join combat on behalf of Ukraine, and notes criticizing the governments of China and Russia" according to the court document.
In the Nissan, law enforcement also found:
Officials also discovered that the license plate on the car was not registered to it.
The SKS semiautomatic 7.62x39 caliber rifle found where Routh was hiding had a latent fingerprint on a piece of tape attached to it. According to the court document, the "print preliminarily matches Routh ."
The written factual proffer also includes some of Routh's prior charges. In December 2002, Routh was convicted in Greensboro, North Carolina, of possession of a weapon of mass destruction (a "binary explosive device"). This is a class "F" felony, which is punishable by terms of up to 59 months of incarceration.
Routh was also convicted of multiple counts of possession of stolen goods in March 2010, a class "H" felony in North Carolina punishable by terms of imprisonment of up to 39 months' incarceration.
Routh is set to appear in West Palm Beach federal court at 11 a.m. Monday. He's facing a charge for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and a charge for possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Gov. DeSantis says the state of Florida will also pursue charges .
