A 59-year-old man has been found guilty of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on a golf course.
Ryan Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen shortly after he was convicted on all five charges against him.
Marshals quickly surrounded Routh and he did not hurt himself. They then dragged him out of the courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida.
His daughter Sara Routh screamed: “Dad I love you don’t do anything. I’ll get you out. He didn’t hurt anybody.”
She continued screaming in the courtroom as her father was removed, and she said the case against him was rigged.
He was later brought back into court, wearing a white shirt and no tie. There was no blood visible on his neck.
The judge wanted to make sure Routh understood he was found guilty. Routh will be sentenced on 18 December, the judge announced.
His son Adam said “we love you Dad” and Routh turned around and winked as he was taken away.
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‘Carefully crafted plot’
A jury of five men and seven women decided Routh intended to kill Mr Trump when he pointed a rifle through a fence as the then US presidential candidate was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September last year.
Routh fled without firing a shot after a Secret Service agent patrolling the course ahead of Mr Trump saw Routh and the rifle and opened fire, according to witness testimony in the case.
At the start of the trial, prosecutor John Shipley said “this plot was carefully crafted and deadly serious”, adding that without the agent intervening, “Donald Trump would not be alive”.
The charges against Routh
Routh had been charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
The incident occurred weeks after a bullet grazed the president’s ear in another assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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Routh, who faces the prospect of life in prison, pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him and chose to defend himself in court.
He spent weeks plotting to kill Mr Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the Republican candidate played golf on 15 September 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club, according to prosecutors.
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What did Routh say?
Routh told jurors in his closing argument that he did not intend to kill anyone that day.
“It’s hard for me to believe that a crime occurred if the trigger was never pulled,” Routh said.
He said he could see Mr Trump as he was on the path toward the sixth-hole green and noted he also could have shot a Secret Service agent who confronted him if he had intended to harm anyone.
Trump’s reaction
Following the guilty verdict, the president said on Truth Social that Routh was “an evil man with an evil intention, and they caught him”.
He thanked the Secret Service and “the wonderful person who spotted him running from the site of the crime”, and provided authorities with his vehicle registration number.
The guilty verdict “illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence”, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X.
“This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our president, but an affront to our very nation,” Ms Bondi said.
