The alleged gunman arrested at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, has a lengthy paper trail of pro-Ukraine advocacy, according to several news reports Monday.
The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday after allegedly pushing the muzzle of an assault rifle through a chain-link fence near former President Donald Trump’s golf course, where the former president was playing the fifth hole. However, this is not the first time Routh has been identified.
Routh is a pro-Ukraine activist who has spent time in the Eastern European country volunteering to raise more support for the nation’s military efforts and even sought Afghan veterans who fled from the Taliban to fight in the war, a New York Times report noted.
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Ryan Routh is accused of aiming a rifle at former President Donald Trump while he was golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday. It is being investigated as a second assassination attempt on Trump. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
He was also interviewed by Semafor in March 2023 and expressed frustration at the Ukranian government for having too much red tape around admitting foreign soldiers to fight in the war.
“Ukraine is very often hard to work with. Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated,” Routh told Semafor, adding that he’d been “yelled at” for suggesting Afghan veterans.
“They’re afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy,” he said.
Routh also talked to Newsweek’s Romania edition in 2022, again about his recruitment efforts for the International Legion Defense of Ukraine, which is an on-the-ground unit for the nation’s army.
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Former President Donald Trump assassination attempt suspect Ryan Routh was seen being taken into custody on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024 in bodycam footage released Monday. (Martin County Sheriff’s Office )
“The question as far as why I’m here … to me, a lot of the other conflicts are grey, but this conflict is definitely black and white,” Routh told Newseek. “This is about good versus evil. This is a storybook, you know, any movie we’ve ever watched, this is definitely evil against good.“
Routh also claimed to have fought in the war and reportedly bragged about his involvement on his social media accounts. His pro-Ukraine advocacy also appears to have led him to write a 291-page book, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which is still available on Amazon.
“I presume that I must be clear, that while on the current path Ukraine will not win, it is imperative for the world that they do win, and that is why this book is so important, for us all to recognize that losing is not an option and what we must do to win,” Routh wrote in the description. “I obviously did not write this to make any money, as that is totally unimportant; the extremely important issue is that we openly discuss daily the major issues that face Ukraine and what we each must try to do to fix them.”
The X account appearing to belong to Routh also repeatedly issued Ukraine-related posts to X that he was ready to fly to Ukraine to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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“I am flying to Ukraine to fight. We need to launch a media campaign to encourage every human around the globe to meet in Ukraine and join in the fight. We need hundreds of thousands of civilians to make the cost of war high for putin and a flood of fighters,” the apparent Routh account posted on Feb. 17, 2022.
Following repeated messages declaring his intention to fight on behalf of Ukraine, the X account posted in April that Routh was in Kyiv.
“I am here in kyiv and want to use Independence Park to create a tent city of all the foreigners here in support to get thousands more foreign civilians to come and support Ukraine,” according to the X post.
Trump has said on several occasions that if elected, he would end the Ukraine-Russia conflict within 24 hours. During the ABC debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump did not explicitly say he wanted Ukraine to triumph in the war. “Just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal,” Trump said.
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An FBI officer works outside of Trump International Golf Club after the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
A background check also previously reviewed by Fox News Digital found that Routh has had repeated run-ins with law enforcement spanning decades in North Carolina.
A majority of the arrests included ones for simple possession, driving without a license, driving with an expired registration, driving without insurance.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Brooke Curto contributed to this report.
