The man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump at a Florida golf course during the 2024 presidential campaign may never step outside of a federal prison after Wednesday.
Ryan Routh, 59, will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for plotting to shoot Trump while he golfed at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024. Routh was convicted in September 2025 of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate.
The Justice Department has requested that Routh be sentenced to life in prison.
“Routh’s crimes undeniably warrant a life sentence—he took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major Presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims,” the department wrote in a January sentencing memo. “The Constitution affords citizens many peaceful avenues to oppose or express strong dissent about a Presidential candidate—murder is not one of them.”
The attempted assassination took place on September 15, 2024, after weeks of planning when Routh was spotted by Secret Service Special Agent Robert Fercano embedded in a hedge near the sixth hole of the golf course with a rifle. Fercano opened fire on Routh, who fled the scene, leaving behind an SKS-style rifle with scope, an extra magazine with 19 rounds of ammo, steel armor plates, and a camera.
Justice Department.
Routh fled the scene in a black Nissan Xterra before he was arrested by officers with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, heading north on Interstate-95. Inside the vehicle, officers found multiple cell phones and a list of flights out of the country. A search of cell phone records found that they had pinged near the golf course and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home multiple times from August 18 to September 15, 2024. Investigators also said that one of the phones had searched how to drive from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
Another list contained dates and venues where Trump was set to appear and a notebook that contained ramblings about how to fight on behalf of Ukraine. Routh was also the apparent author of a book called “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII and the End of Humanity.”
Routh wrote in the book that he “must take part of the blame for the [person] that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal. No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.”
According to another filing from the Justice Department, Routh communicated with a person he believed to be a Ukrainian with access to military-grade weapons and requested a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), lamenting that then-presidential nominee Donald Trump “is not good for Ukraine.”
Over a year before the assassination attempt, Routh was quoted in The New York Times talking about recruiting foreigners to fight for Ukraine.
Routh detained in Florida: Photo by Martin County Sheriff’s Office / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images.
The FBI also obtained a letter from Routh that was delivered in a box to a civilian witness.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” Routh wrote. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”
The letter also attacked Trump for ending “relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.”
The would-be assassin was also convicted in September of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh had previous convictions in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction and in 2010 for multiple counts of possession of stolen goods.
As the verdict was delivered, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen, prompting law enforcement to restrain and shackle him. Routh has argued that his charges should not be enhanced with federal terrorism classifications. The Justice Department says he is a threat to American society.
“Routh is also a threat to the public collectively,” the Justice Department said in its sentencing memo. “He attempted to prevent the American people from exercising their right to elect the President of their choosing, by killing one of the two major candidates in the 2024 Presidential election. His conduct jeopardized the democratic process as well as multiple human lives.”
Cannon, the judge who will sentence Routh, was appointed by Trump. She previously dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, saying that special counsel Jack Smith was appointed unconstitutionally to oversee the case.
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