Jury trial of Ryan Routh, man accused of trying to kill Trump, begins in Florida

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The man charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump when he was running for president last year delivered the opening statement in his own trial Thursday.

Ryan Routh was arrested after a Secret Service agent said he spotted him holding a rifle near where Trump was golfing at his West Palm Beach club in September 2024.

Besides being charged with attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, Routh faces four other counts, including attempting to assault a federal officer.  If convicted on the attempted assassination charge, he faces a possible life sentence. Routh has pleaded not guilty.

After Routh became dissatisfied with his defense attorneys, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon gave him permission to represent himself in court. He did so during jury selection, which began on Monday, but ran into trouble with Judge Cannon soon after he started his opening statement.

Addressing the jury on Thursday, he began with a series of vague statements and questions with little direct relevance to the events and crimes he’s charged with. “Why are we here?” he asked. “Is it not to care for one another and to hold one another?”

Judge Cannon interrupted and warned him, saying “What I have heard clearly goes beyond any relevant evidence in the case.” And she ended his opening statement early before he was finished.

In his opening, federal prosecutor John Shipley told jurors that Routh wanted to ensure that voters would not be able to elect Donald Trump as president in 2024. “The defendant decided to take the choice away from the American voters,” he said.  The plot Routh is charged with, he said, “was carefully crafted and deadly serious.”

Former Secret Service agent Robert Fercano, now with the Department of Homeland Security, testified about his encounter with a man he first saw as a “face in the bushes” on September 15 last year as then-Presidential candidate Trump was golfing at his West Palm Beach club. 

As he scanned the 6th hole of the golf course, ahead of where Trump was playing, Fercano said, “I encountered what appeared to be the face of an individual (and) the barrel of a weapon protruding from the fence line.”

Fercano testified he got off his golf cart and said, “Hey sir!” At first, he said, he thought he was possibly encountering a homeless person and there wasn’t an imminent threat. In response, he said, “I heard what appeared to be a groan and the subject smiled at me.” 

At about the same time, Fercano told jurors he saw a gun barrel protruding from the fence line, which moved toward him as he backed away. He says he also noticed ballistic “bulletproof vest” plates positioned on the fence. Fercano, a former Marine and trained marksman, said, “This appeared to be a textbook ambush scenario.”

In the courtroom, Fercano identified Routh as the gunman. He said he was no more than five feet from the fence line where the gunman was positioned and that he recognized Routh’s “particular jawline and facial features.”

In his cross-examination, Routh’s first question of Fercano was, “Isn’t it good to be alive?” Fercano agreed that it was and addressed Routh as the gunman he saw that day. When Routh asked why the gunman hadn’t used his weapon to fire on Fercano that day, the former Secret Service agent replied, “I don’t know your mindset. I do know the gun barrel that day was pointed at my face.”