One Of Trump’s Alleged Attempted Assassins Sent Me A Letter

The day after the second attempt on his life this year, Donald Trump blamed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,” Trump said. His running mate, JD Vance, also blamed Harris and other Democrats, and the question of what motivated the alleged would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, remained a hot topic heading into Election Day.

That is one reason, among others, that I was intrigued when I received a four-page letter at POLITICO’s office that was addressed to me and appeared to be from Routh himself. The top of the line on the return address was “Trump Alleged Shooter” and below that was Routh’s name, inmate number and an address for the federal detention center in Miami where he has been held since mid-September, when Routh allegedly tried to kill Trump at his Florida golf course.

It eventually became clear the letter was, in fact, from Routh. The handwriting closely resembled the handwriting in a letter the Justice Department has publicly attributed to Routh as evidence of his plan to kill Trump, and the signature closely matched Routh’s signature from a document prepared in 2015. We sent a copy of the envelope to Routh’s lawyers and asked them to let us know if it was not from him; they declined to comment. In recent weeks, Routh also apparently sent a similar letter to the Palm Beach Post.

In deciding to publish this story, we were not eager to appear as if we were simply providing a platform for the political views of someone accused of attempted murder. It is generally not a good idea simply to take the claims of an accused or convicted criminal at face value. They can have agendas and delusions — sometimes both.

But ultimately, Routh’s letter — which includes potentially incriminating references to the attempt on Trump’s life and a self-description of his political beliefs — is newsworthy. There was, after all, legitimate and widespread media coverage when federal prosecutors made public part of an earlier letter that they have attributed to Routh — a somewhat confusing letter that he appears to have written several months prior to his arrest, and in which he appears at the time to have contemplated a failed assassination attempt. On top of that, Routh apparently tried to kill a leading candidate for president — now the president-elect — but did not leave a formal manifesto, and he is scheduled to stand trial in February. On an even more basic level, if Routh held a press conference, we would cover it.

Routh’s new correspondence may shed some light on what drove him to make an attempt on Trump’s life — though we should also approach it with a measure of caution. He may simply be a deeply disturbed individual.

To hear Routh tell it, he has no particular affinity for the Democratic Party — or either major political party, for that matter.

“I am unclear how we allowed ourselves to fall into just a two-party system,” Routh wrote, “but it infuriates me. My entire life has been plagued by D’s and R’s. It seems not long ago there was a push for the libertarian party and now a green party and maybe Truth party. But for some reason our leaders have not allowed any other party [to] be recognized in any race.”

Routh proceeded to criticize “the two ruling parties” and argued that “[w]ith our national debt swallowing us whole and bankruptcy imminent we may as well fix this problem balls out.” He appeared to call for full public campaign financing in order to “eliminate private donations” and also takes issue with “gridlock in Congress.”

“We all wonder why we end up with such flawed candidates,” Routh wrote, “when our system is designed to exclude most everyone.”

At one point in the letter, Routh explicitly disclaimed any affiliation with the Democratic Party. “A guard [in] Palm Beach asked jokingly if I was a democrat — I said, ‘NO — Independent — I vote for the best candidate.’”

To be sure, Routh is a vigorous Trump opponent. He wrote his letter before the election and urged the country, in the event of a Trump victory, “to remove the power of our military by the President and place it with Congress before January.” “We must limit all Presidential power before Trump seizes our country,” he wrote. He referred to Trump at one point as a “dictator.” (Last year, Trump said he would not be a dictator if reelected “except for day one.”)

In the event that Trump lost, Routh called on Americans “to encircle the capitol” in order to prevent another siege of the U.S. Capitol akin to the one that occurred on Jan. 6, 2021. At multiple points, he contemplated the prospect of another “civil war.” (For the record, this is not a good idea, to put it as mildly as possible.)

Routh referred to himself multiple times as the “Trump Alleged Shooter,” perhaps to avoid an explicit confession, but at one point, he linked himself directly to Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was the first person who tried to assassinate Trump this year, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Crooks was killed on sight by a Secret Service sniper; Routh has been charged with the attempted assassination of Trump but has pleaded not guilty. Routh described them both, however, as being “ready to die for freedom and democracy.”

The letter continued with a short section urging people to vote against Trump and criticized him for having “destroyed the MidEast.” Routh took specific issue with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal — name-checking the “JCPOA” — and blamed Trump “for all those lives lost and all the destruction” in the region since.

Routh closed with a call for an agreement to end the conflict in the Middle East. “We must demand that Israel stop their attacks and demand that all parties come to the table and find common ground,” he writes. He urged Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet with “the new president of Iran and Hamas, Hezbollah and [the Houthis for] as long as it takes.”

“My fellowmen,” Routh concluded, “please demand peace.”

Take this all for what it’s worth, which may not be much. After all, the basic message — a call for peace from someone who appears to have attempted an assassination — is not exactly a coherent or compelling one in the first place.

But are Biden and Harris to blame for Routh’s plot? Routh clearly views Trump as a threat to democracy, echoing a major piece of Democrats’ case against Trump during this election cycle, as well as that of anti-Trump Republicans. That said, the only reference to Biden is made amid the discussion of the Middle East, as described above. The letter didn’t mention Harris at all.

In the end, we can’t know what may have driven an agitated mind to attempt a heinous act. You don’t have to believe Routh based on what he put in his letter. He’s not exactly a reliable narrator. But you also don’t have to take the word of partisan politicians. The only thing for certain in this polarized climate is that the debate isn’t going away.