Former President Donald Trump’s son said Monday that the Department of Justice is putting his father’s “life even more at risk” by releasing a letter from attempted assassin Ryan Routh allegedly promising $150,000 to anyone who could successfully assassinate Trump.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you,” Routh allegedly wrote in the letter, which the Justice Department released during Routh’s pretrial detention hearing Monday. “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 Justice Department said that publishing the letter will “assist counsel and the Court.” But Donald Trump Jr. disagrees, telling The Daily Wire that publishing the bounty letter puts his father in even more danger than before.
“For the life of me, I do not understand why the Kamala-Biden DOJ is publicly releasing a letter from Ryan Wesley Routh announcing a $150,000 bounty on my dad’s head,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “They’re putting his life even more at risk with this reckless decision.”
Routh, a Democrat donor who accused Trump of ending “relations with Iran like a child,” allegedly argued in the letter that “Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a U.S. president. U.S. presidents must at bare minimum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity.”
Routh’s attempt comes after 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Crooks shot Trump in the ear, narrowly missing his head, during a Pennsylvania rally in July. Crooks killed 50-year-old Corey Comparatore, a father of two, and critically injured two others during the assassination attempt.
President Trump honors Corey Comperatore, the father who lost his life at the Pennsylvania rally when an attempted assassin shot at the former president. pic.twitter.com/mT18hPRbcq
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) July 19, 2024
In the DOJ filing, prosecutors describe how agents looked in Routh’s vehicle and found additional license plates, cellphones, 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii Driver’s License, a passport, and handwritten list of dates in August, September, and October 2024 regarding where Trump had appeared or would appear. They also found a notebook with “dozens of pages” filled with names and phone numbers related to Ukraine or how to join combat on behalf of Ukraine, the filing said.
“On September 18, 2024, law enforcement was contacted by a civilian witness who stated that ROUTH had dropped off a box at his residence several months prior,” the filing said. “After learning of the September 15, 2024, incident at Trump International, the witness opened the box. The witness stated the box contained ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones, and various letters. One handwritten letter, addressed to ‘The World,’ stated, among other things, ‘This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. 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 filing also notes that Routh was convicted on December 20, 2002, in Greensboro, North Carolina of possession of a weapon of mass destruction, the filing said — a “binary explosive device” — and convicted on March 3, 2010, of multiple counts of possession of stolen goods.
