Who Is Alleged Trump Golf Course Gunman Ryan Wesley Routh?

The suspected gunman involved in what authorities are calling an apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump was identified by authorities Sunday night as Ryan Wesley Routh.

The 58-year-old allegedly carried an AK-47-style rifle with a scope onto the grounds near Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. He also had two backpacks filled with ceramic tile and a GoPro camera hanging on a nearby fence.

Secret Service agents allegedly confronted and shot at Routh after noticing a rifle barrel sticking out of a nearby chain link fence just one hole ahead of the former president as he played a round with real estate developer Steve Witkoff on Sunday afternoon.

Routh was roughly 300-500 yards away from Trump, authorities said at a press conference following the incident.

A witness told investigators with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office that they then saw a man leap out of the bushes and take off in a black Nissan. The witness was able to take a photo of the car, which helped authorities track the suspect down.

The Nissan was eventually pulled over by deputies in neighboring Martin County, after a license plate reader got a hit on the vehicle while driving on I-95.

Martin County Sheriff William D. Snyder told Local10 News that the driver was “relatively calm” and “not displaying a lot of emotions.”

A man believed to be Routh was arrested in North Carolina in 2002 after an armed standoff with police officers, the Greensboro News & Record reported.

The dispute began when Routh put his hand on a gun during a traffic stop, the newspaper reported, before barricading himself for three hours inside United Roofing—a company based in Greensboro that records indicated he owned.

Routh eventually surrendered and was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which the local paper reported was a fully automatic machine gun. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, hit and run, resisting an officer, and driving with a revoked license.

He was eventually convicted and sentenced to probation on all charges, according to North Carolina court records.

At some point, Routh relocated to Hawaii, where he ran what appears to be a construction firm for shed-like housing units. A phone number listed for the business goes straight to voicemail.

John Miller, CNN’s law enforcement analyst, said he was more interested in Routh’s posts on social media—which included countless missives about supporting the Ukrainian forces in their continued fight against Russia’s invasion in 2022.

“He goes deep into his his self-proclaimed involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, his efforts to recruit soldiers and bring them into the country, his claims that he has been there possibly as a fighter,” Miller told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and Wolf Blitzer.

The Daily Beast found two websites dedicated to the cause of sending foreign fighters overseas—one for Ukraine, and another for a theoretical future conflict between Taiwan and China. Both websites prominently list Routh’s contact information.

The phone number posted on both sites also goes straight to voicemail—but mentions his involvement in the Ukrainian and Taiwanese recruitment efforts, as well as his Hawaiian construction company.

One of the websites appears to be dedicated to helping volunteer fighters travel to Ukraine and sign up for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. However, it is unclear if Routh’s organization ever helped anyone reach the front lines.

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian volunteer unit told The Daily Beast that Routh “has never been part of, associated with, or linked to the International Legion in any capacity.”

Routh was also interviewed by The New York Times in 2023 about his recruitment efforts, the paper said Sunday. He reportedly had no previous military experience but told the paper he was trying to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight on the Ukrainian side. “I’m just a U.S. citizen that’s helping out,” he said.

The Times reporter, who interviewed Routh for a larger story about unqualified foreign volunteers with limited military experience, said Routh was “doing whatever it took” to get the Afghan volunteers to the war-torn Eastern European country. The reporter also reflected that “it was clear he was in way over his head.”

Oran Routh, Ryan Routh’s 35-year-old son, told CNN that he was a “loving and caring father, and honest, hardworking man.”

“I don’t know what’s happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent,” Oran told the network.

One of Routh’s former neighbors in Greensboro also expressed disbelief when she heard his name. “I mean I didn’t think he would go that far. I knew he was a little cuckoo, but assassinating the president? I mean he’s going to be going away for a long time,” she told Fox 8.

The neighbor, who did not wish to be identified, told the local station that she knew he had “a lot of guns and stuff” in his North Carolina home and claimed that people were “afraid of him back in the day.”

Accused Trump Golf Course Gunman Was ‘Cuckoo’: Neighbor‘A LOT OF GUNS’

Zachary Folk, Brett Bachman

Among some of the social media posts viewed by The Daily Beast, Routh expressed support for Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii representative, during her long-shot run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

A Hawaii-based man with the same name sent multiple small donations to Gabbard’s campaign in 2020, according to FEC records. Previous donations were all to Democrats, including long-shot 2020 presidential candidates, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

They have not donated to another candidate’s campaign since.