A jury has found Ryan Routh guilty of plotting to kill Donald Trump at one of his Florida golf courses last year.
The verdict followed two hours of deliberations on Tuesday.
Routh, who did not choose to have a lawyer throughout the proceedings and a fast-paced trial, had planned the attack at the president’s Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach nearly one year ago.
He was armed with a semiautomatic rifle while then-candidate Trump was playing golf on September 15, 2024. Secret Service agents spotted him hiding in shrubbery with an SKS-style rifle, which Routh had argued was never pointed at the president.
An agent fired at Routh, who fled the scene without firing any shots of his own. He was stopped roughly 45 minutes while driving north on Interstate 95.
In his closing argument, Routh told the jury that federal prosecutors had not proved “any intent” to kill.
“No one ever intended to kill anyone,” he said. “The rifle was never picked up from its resting place.”
The aborted attack arrived just two months after Trump was nearly fatally shot during a campaign rally last July.
At multiple points during the trial, Routh, 59, was reprimanded by District Judge Aileen Cannon for disrupting the proceedings, asking irrelevant questions, or making statements that were beyond the scope of the case.
This is a developing story
