Man detained in apparent assassination attempt on Trump criticized former president on social media

By Curt Devine, Isabelle Chapman, Daniel Medina, Majlie de Puy Kamp, Scott Glover, Audrey Ash and Rob Kuznia, CNN

(CNN) — A 58-year-old man detained Sunday in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Florida is a self-employed affordable housing builder in Hawaii who went on social media to weigh in on politics and current events, at times criticizing the former president.

Ryan Wesley Routh, who authorities suspect was planning to attack the former president as he played a round of golf, posted comments on an X account linked to him referencing the assassination attempt on Trump at a July rally in Pennsylvania.

Routh tagged Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate posts, encouraging them to visit those injured at the rally.

“You and Biden should visit the injured people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris.

In an April post on X tagging President Biden’s presidential account, he wrote that Biden’s campaign should be: “called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA …make Americans slaves again master. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”

In June 2020, Routh appeared to say that he had voted for Trump in 2016, but that he had since withdrawn his support of the former president: “While you were my choice in 2106, I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving,” he wrote. “I will be glad when you gone.”

Routh also has ties to North Carolina, where public records show he registered as an “unaffiliated” voter without a party in 2012. He voted in that state’s Democratic primary in March of this year, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Routh has contributed more than $100 to ActBlue, which processes donations for Democrats, federal campaign finance records show.

Routh expressed strong support for Ukraine – in dozens of posts on X in 2022, saying he was willing to die in the fight and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.”

“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE…Can I be the example We must win,” Routh said in an X post in March 2022.

Routh then used his personal Facebook account last year to encourage foreigners to fight in the war. He tried to enlist Afghan conscripts in a flurry of posts, beginning in October 2023, presenting himself as an off-the-books liaison for the Ukrainian government.

“Afghan Soldiers- Ukraine is somewhat interested in 3000 soldiers, so I need every soldier that has a passport to send me a copy of their passport to send to Ukraine,” he wrote in one such post, which was published in English and Pashto.

Routh’s LinkedIn page says he started a company in 2018 called Camp Box Honolulu, which builds storage units and tiny houses; a story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser said he donated a structure for homeless people.

“Work has never been about money rather building frameworks for people to thrive and succeed,” Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Being mechanically minded I enjoy ideas and invention and creative projects with artistic flare.”

The company’s website says it uses standard economical, fast and efficient construction techniques and materials to “produce solutions to our own problems right here on the island.”

A Hawaiian man who gave Routh a bad review on Facebook told CNN he was unsettled by Routh’s response to the criticism. Saili Levi, owner of a vanilla company, said he had paid Routh $3,800 up front to build a trailer for his business, but when Levi came to Routh’s shop to review his work, it was shoddy.

Levi said when he asked Routh to improve the work via email, Routh ranted at him.

“He just kind of started ranting about, you know, ‘You think because you have money, you’re better than me?’” Levi said, adding that Routh also mentioned having gone to Ukraine to fight against Russia. “I kind of decided maybe I should just let it go for the sake of my family.”

Records from North Carolina, dating back a couple of decades, also show that he had scrapes with the law.

In 2002, Routh was arrested after he was pulled over by police and allegedly put his hand on a firearm before barricading himself in a business, according to a Greensboro News & Record article that year that cited police. A law enforcement confirmed the arrest to CNN on Sunday.

Public records reveal several court cases involving Routh since the 1990s.

State and federal authorities have repeatedly accused him of failing to pay his taxes on time. For example, he faced a federal tax lien in 2008 of about $32,000, according to court records.

In 1998, the state alleged he committed an offense related to a “worthless check,” though that case was dismissed.

Separately, judges have ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs in various civil suits.

Routh’s eldest son, Oran, told CNN via text that Routh was “a loving and caring father, and honest hardworking man.”

The son wrote, “I don’t know what’s happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent.”

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