Tipsheet

'Whack Job': Here's Where Trump's Would-Be Assassin Gave Everyone the Creeps

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  September 17, 2024 6:50 AM

We knew this was coming, folks: everyone and their mother, through numerous agencies, knew about Ryan Wesley Routh, the wannabe Trump assassin who tried to pull a ‘Grassy Knoll’-like attack on Trump over the weekend. Routh hid in a shrubbery along Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, for 12 hours; he had a rifle with a scope and a GoPro. He wasn’t hunting groundhogs.

The Secret Service got lucky, as they didn’t sweep the course before Trump’s arrival, instead securing holes ahead of the former president as he played. An agent scouting the perimeter of the course saw a barrel and opened fire, causing Routh to flee. An eyewitness photo of him and the car he fled the scene in led to his arrest by police later. 

We learned that the FBI knew about him in 2019, stemming from an illegal firearm possession case. The Wall Street Journal has a lengthy piece about how numerous people who encountered Routh were unnerved by him and his antisocial tendencies, warning higher-ups about this individual. In short, US authorities were warned multiple times about Routh. Still, first, Larry Provost had an excellent piece about an ex-CIA targeting officer who gave Townhall information about her read on Mr. Routh:

In information shared with Townhall.com, Sarah Adams, a former CIA targeter and intelligence analyst, shared a Be On The Lookout warning (BOLO) from June 2, 2023 warning of criminal activities by Ryan Routh.  The information in Ms. Adams’ BOLO was, according to her, even reported to the U.S. government, specifically the Department of State.   

The BOLO is partially reprinted below: 

"📢 Important Announcement 📢 🚫 BOLO 🚫 

"Beware of American Ryan Routh. Reports indicate that he is leading a human trafficking scheme. He is instructing Afghans to travel illegally to Iran with the promise they will link up eventually with the Ukrainian legion to fight. This is a fraud as NO official pathway exists for this from the Ukrainian Government for our allies in Afghanistan. Also, despite promised funding support it has not come to fruition and he has abandoned Afghans illegally in Iran. 

[…]

Ms. Adams was author of the BOLO, which was sent out to a number of humanitarian groups connected to helping Ukrainians after the Russian reinvasion of February 24, 2022, as well as groups assisting Afghans who had previously assisted the United States during the 20-year War in Afghanistan. 

Ms. Adams’ BOLO continued and shared Routh’s website, social media that included a LinkedIn page as well as then Twitter/now X account, and his regular phone number, that Routh apparently used across various platforms to include Signal, WhatsApp and Viber.   (Townhall has specifically omitted this information) 

The BOLO was received and Mr. Routh was known to be ostracized by several leaders in the Ukrainian humanitarian community.

And now, The Wall Street Journal with the follow, which also featured Adams, who rightly called Routh a “whack job”:

…it was Routh’s time in Ukraine, where he traveled shortly after the Russian invasion in 2022 hoping to join the fight, where his tumultuous life full of failures and brushes with the law seemed to spiral further downward—and to alarm those who came in contact with him. 

Chelsea Walsh, a nurse who had several encounters with Routh in Kyiv in 2022, said his threats of violence worried her so much that she conveyed her concerns to a Customs and Border Protection officer in an hourlong interview at Washington’s Dulles airport in June 2022. 

Walsh told the officer during the interview, which took place after she returned to the U.S., that Routh was among the most dangerous Americans she met during her month-and-a-half-long stint in Ukraine. 

She showed the officer a notebook listing more than dozen names of Americans and others whose actions had alarmed her, she recounted. Under the heading “Overall Predatory Behavior (or antisocial traits)” were four names. Routh’s was at the top. 

Customs and Border Protection didn’t immediately respond to inquiries about the meeting. 

Routh’s behavior had been flagged to the FBI in the past, though not in connection to Ukraine. A tipster told the FBI in 2019 that Routh had a firearm despite being a felon, but when questioned further wouldn’t verify providing the information, an FBI official said Monday. The bureau passed the information onto authorities in Honolulu, where Routh was living at the time, and closed the investigation. 

His activities related to Ukraine brought him to the attention of a large group of people, many of whom quickly grew suspicious. 

Routh was well known among volunteer aid groups in Ukraine as a “fraudster” and “kind of a whack job,” said Sarah Adams, a former CIA officer who helped run a network that linked 50 aid groups to share information and coordinate humanitarian and volunteer efforts. He claimed to be working with the Ukrainian government to recruit foreign fighters but wasn’t, she said. 

The media also knew about Routh, with The New York Times and Semafor interviewing him for pieces about his Ukraine activities, where he reportedly met with government officials. What do they have to say if there were any meetings at all? 

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