The alleged would-be assassin arrested for targeting Donald Trump while he golfed in Florida may have been given inside information about the former president’s schedule, according to an ex-FBI official who called the possibility “scary.”
Chris Swecker, a retired FBI assistant director, told Newsweek that the feds and other law enforcement will now be probing how the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, allegedly appeared to know Trump would be at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla. on Sunday.
“The biggest question to answer is: ‘How did the would-be assassin know to be at that location at that time?’” said Swecker, who worked on FBI criminal investigations.
“There are only three possible answers: He guessed and got very lucky; he conducted surveillance on Trump and followed him to the golf course or he had inside information about Trump’s schedule.”
He added: “The last answer is scary and has implications that another person was involved.”
Routh, of Hawaii, was nabbed after Secret Service agents stationed a few holes ahead of the 78-year-old former president noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
The alleged gunman, who had the rifle and a GoPro camera allegedly set up to apparently film the planned shooting, was able to get between 300 to 500 yards away from the 45th president.
The FBI is leading the investigation and is working to determine any motive, authorities said.
Follow the latest on the foiled assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Florida:
Despite Trump having a stepped-up security footprint since the last assassination attempt against him in July, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said protection for him was still light because he isn’t a sitting president.
The entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump was the current president, the sheriff said.
“I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter,” Bradshaw said.
“But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done.”
Swecker, meanwhile, described the suspect as an apparent “wing nut” who hated authority after it emerged he had previously echoed anti-Trump rhetoric on social media and posted about threats to democracy.
“We know this suspect has posted about Trump being a danger to democracy and he has been active on some strange quests: visiting Ukraine to round up Afghan fighters so motive is coming into focus — he is a wing nut who dislikes authority, based on his arrest record for resisting arrest in a two-hour standoff,” Swecker said.
Routh has had repeated run-ins with the law over the years – including an-hours-long standoff with cops in 2002 in which he was convicted of carrying a “weapon of mass destruction,” online records show.
