CNN Central News & Network–ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: The federal prosecutors on Monday levied charges of improperly possessing a gun against the suspected gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh, in the Trump assassination attempt.
According to the officials, Routh’s phone records showed that he had spent nearly 12 hours in the vicinity of the former US president Donald Trump’s golf course before being spotted by the authorities.
The federal complaint also charged Routh of possessing a gun with a “defaced serial number”.
The records indicated that Ryan Routh’s “mobile phone was located in the vicinity of the area along the tree line described above from approximately 1:59 AM until approximately 1:31 PM, on September 15, 2024,” the complaint noted.
The complaint also said Routh was driving a 2012 Ford truck, that was reported stolen when he was stopped.
In the complaint, an FBI special agent said that Routh had been convicted in 2002 in North Carolina of possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction,” a felony.
Meanwhile, Trump sought to blame US Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for the second assassination attempt targeting him. While speaking to Fox News, Trump said the Democrats have instigated violence by saying he was a threat to American democracy.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” Trump said.