FBI Investigating West Palm Beach Attack On Trump As Assassination Attempt

by Daniel Johnson

September 16, 2024

As with the previous attempt on Trump, Routh was able to exploit gaps in the Secret Service protection detail to get approximately 400 feet away from the former president and the Secret Service again faces scrutiny

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For the second time in as many months, the FBI is investigating an assassination attempt on former president Donald J. Trump, this time at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

According to the New York Times, on Sept. 15, Secret Service agents fired at a man who was armed with a rifle and hiding in bushes around the golf club. The man fled the scene and was later apprehended and taken into custody. 

Law enforcement eventually identified the suspect as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, a former construction worker and Trump voter who also tried to recruit former Afghan soldiers who had defected from the Taliban to fight for Ukraine in their war against Russia.

As with the previous attempt on Trump, Routh exploited gaps in the Secret Service protection detail to get approximately 400 feet away from the former president, and the Secret Service again faces scrutiny.  

President Joe Biden was on his way to Philadelphia to speak at an HBCU conference, and he told reporters that he believes the Secret Service needs help protecting Trump. 

“One thing I want to make clear is: The Service needs more help,” President Biden said. “And I think Congress should respond to their need. Thank God the president is OK.”

The assassination attempt also did not escape Elon Musk and other conservative voices on Twitter/X, who used the nebulous “they” to refer to a potential Trump assassin.

Musk, in particular, mused why there hasn’t yet been an attempt on either President Joe Biden or Trump’s opponent in the election, Vice President Kamala Harris.

After a user posed a question, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” Musk, who is a Trump supporter, responded, “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” 

After the post received outrage, Musk deleted his comments and attempted to clarify on the platform on Sept 16 that he was making a joke through multiple posts. 

“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X,” Musk said. “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text,” Musk wrote in a follow-up post. 

Sheriff Rick Bradshaw, the Sheriff of Palm Beach County, said that the detail of a former president is smaller than a sitting president, which likely contributed to their inability to effectively secure the perimeter, even after the detail was enhanced following the last assassination attempt. 

“At this level that he is at right now, he’s not the sitting president — if he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded,” Sheriff Bradshaw told the New York Times.

Bradshaw continued, “But because he’s not, the security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” Though Bradshaw praised the service’s fast response, he also thought security would be even further enhanced on Trump’s next visit to a golf course. “So I would imagine that the next time he comes at a golf course, there’ll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter.”

Lawmakers, like Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee who investigated the Secret Service failures in the last attempt on Trump’s life, found this latest security breach to be alarming and appalling.

“The facts about a second incident certainly warrant very close attention and scrutiny,” Sen. Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told the Times.

Blumenthal continued, “Certainly, a second serious incident, apparently involving an assault weapon, is deeply alarming and appalling.”

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