OAN Staff Abril Elfi
10:39 AM – Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Ryan Routh, the 59-year-old failed “would-be” assassin who attempted to kill President Donald Trump last year, is now preparing to represent himself in his federal court trial.
Routh has a pretrial conference scheduled for Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Previously, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon accepted Routh’s plea to represent himself, but she also appointed standby counsel. Jury selection is slated to begin on September 8th in the Fort Pierce federal court.
The trial will commence almost a year after the purported assassination attempt, which occurred on September 15, 2024, at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach.
Routh was arrested after the muzzle of his SKS semi-automatic rifle was spotted peeping through shrubbery at Trump’s International Golf Club in West Palm Beach by a Secret Service agent. However, it is still unclear how Routh knew what location Trump would be at at the time.
After an agent noticed Routh and fired back rounds at him, he quickly dropped his weapon and fled the scene, leaving behind his firearm — along with two backpacks and a GoPro camera, according to court documents.
Routh was apprehended around 40 minutes later on Interstate 95 in Martin County, Florida.
According to reports, a woman had noticed him and his vehicle “suspiciously” speeding away, thus contacting the authorities. The witness observed Routh running from the area and eventually jumping into a black Nissan Xterra. This information led law enforcement to issue a “be on the lookout” alert, and shortly after, officers from the Martin County and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Offices located and arrested Routh on Interstate 95.
Court documents stated that federal agents searched his vehicle, which contained multiple “pieces of evidence,” including a written escape plan, burner phones, fake IDs, and a document describing ways to join the Russia-Ukraine war on behalf of Ukraine.
Prosecutors also alleged that Routh “had been planning to assassinate the President for six months, at least” and pursued multiple different avenues to acquire weapons, including from a contact in Mexico identified as “Ramiro,” whom Routh contacted to smuggle in weapons from the border.
Additionally, Routh told Ramiro that he planned to be in Mexico City following the attack, according to authorities.
He has also pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.
Routh has a history of making violent threats and has already faced criminal charges. He was arrested in 2002 for fleeing police and barricading himself with a machine pistol and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosion. He was also detained in 2010 after police discovered over 100 stolen products at the warehouse he owned. In all instances, he received probation or a suspended sentence.
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