This is the view to a near-assassination.
Exclusive images show how close Ryan Wesley Routh would have been to former President Donald Trump from his sniper’s nest off the 6th hole at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach Sunday afternoon.
Had a Secret Service agent on advance patrol not spotted the barrel of Routh’s rifle protruding from the bushes, the 58-year-old from Hawaii would have been no more than 90 yards (270 feet) from the 45th president and his playing partners as they putted out on the green.
If Routh had waited for Trump, 78, to use the cart path, the would-be assassin would have been even closer to his target — fewer than 50 feet away.
Routh fled the property after being shot at by the advance agent, but was arrested following a traffic stop on Interstate 95 in neighboring Martin County.
The would-be assassin was arraigned Monday on two federal gun charges and remanded into custody until his next court date, set for Sept. 23.
A phone number associated with Routh was tracked in the “vicinity of the area along the tree line” near the course for about 12 hours Sunday — between 1:59 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, a criminal complaint against the suspect revealed.
Authorities discovered a loaded SKS rifle with a scope in the sniper’s nest, along with two backpacks hanging on the fence and a GoPro camera.
There is no evidence that Routh fired any shots before being chased away by the advance agent.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw previously estimated that Routh came within 300 to 500 yards of Trump, but added that he doubted the suspect had a clear shot at the GOP presidential nominee.
“It doesn’t appear to me, knowing what I know about the terrain there and where we are looking at, that he had a clear shot from there to where the president was before he would make the turn to come that way [down the sixth hole],” Bradshaw told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe told reporters Monday that the protective agency was forced to scramble to accommodate the 45th president on his golf outing.
“The president wasn’t even really supposed to go there. It was not on his official schedule. And so we put together a security plan, and that security plan worked,” Rowe said.
But a bipartisan chorus of lawmakers in Congress say they were deeply troubled by how close the suspect got to Trump, 64 days after the former president was wounded in another assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
The Secret Service has taken steps to ramp up security for Trump, including erecting bulletproof glass in front of his podium at outdoor rallies, and other measures that haven’t been disclosed to the public.
Rowe personally toured the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach and met with the former president on Monday.
During that meeting, Rowe privately told Trump that the Secret Service can’t guarantee his safety on sprawling golf courses without bolstered resources, the New York Times reported.
Trump has remained defiant in the wake of the attack, vowing on social media that “Nothing will slow me down.”
“You know,” the former president declared at a town hall in Flint, Mich. Tuesday night, “only consequential presidents get shot at.”
