FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — Opening statements for the trial of a man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump during a golf game in South Florida last year, while he was campaigning for re-election, are scheduled to begin Thursday morning.
Ryan Routh is defending himself after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permitted him to dismiss his court-appointed lawyers. Nevertheless, the attorneys remain available in the courtroom if needed.
Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and multiple firearm offenses.
Before this week, Routh attended hearings shackled at the wrists and ankles and clothed in a tan jail outfit. However, with the jury present, he has been allowed to appear unshackled and in a suit and tie. Judge Cannon has stated that Routh can address jurors and witnesses from a podium but will not have freedom of movement around the courtroom.
A group of 12 jurors and four alternates was sworn in on Wednesday at the Fort Pierce, Florida, federal courthouse. The jury comprises four white men, one Black man, six white women, and one Black woman, with alternates being two white men and two white women. The jury was chosen from a pool of 180 potential jurors.
The trial commences nearly a year after prosecutors claim a U.S. Secret Service agent foiled his attempt to shoot the then-Republican presidential nominee. The trial is anticipated to last two or three weeks.
Prosecutors have said Routh, 59, methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.
Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.
Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The case became mired in delays as motions piled up over months, and was ultimately dismissed by Cannon last year after she concluded that the special counsel tapped by the Justice Department to investigate Trump was illegally appointed.
Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.
In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he was arrested in 2002 for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch (25.4-cm) fuse.
