US charges alleged Trump shooter with attempted murder | Donald Trump News

Ryan Routh was taken into custody after being charged in a Florida court over an incident at a Florida golf course.

Ryan Routh, the man accused of using a rifle to surveil former US President Donald Trump's golf course in Florida, has been charged with attempted assassination of a political candidate.

Routh, 58, has already faced two weapons charges after he was caught aiming a rifle through a fence at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, while the Republican presidential candidate was playing a round.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate violence that strikes at the heart of our democracy, and we will find and hold accountable those who perpetrate it. This must stop,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Routh was remanded in custody pending trial. The attempted murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Court records showed the case had been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who in July dismissed a criminal case against Trump accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office.

Routh has not yet entered a confession. His lawyers tried unsuccessfully to have him released on bail.

In recent days, prosecutors have presented evidence pointing to a plot to assassinate Trump.

They claimed that months before the incident, Routh left a note to an unknown person who apparently believed the assassination attempt would fail. The note described his actions as a failed “assassination attempt on Donald Trump” and offered $150,000 to anyone who could “finish the job.”

They said Routh spent a month in South Florida and cellphone data showed he was near the golf course and Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. He found a handwritten list of dates and locations where Trump had spoken or was expected to speak in August, September and October, court documents said.

A U.S. Secret Service agent who was searching the golf course ahead of Trump opened fire after spotting a man's partially obscured face and the gun protruding through the fence, prosecutors said.

The agent shot Routh, who fled. He was arrested within an hour on a Florida highway.

Although Routh did not fire any shots and did not have Trump in his sights, officials said, he left behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS rifle with a scope and a plastic bag of food.

The arrest came two months after Trump was shot and injured in the ear during an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service acknowledged failings in the lead-up to the shooting but said security forces had worked as intended to prevent a possible attack in Florida.