() – A 58-year-old man arrested Sunday in connection with an apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Florida is a self-employed affordable housing developer in Hawaii who took to social media to weigh in on politics and current events, sometimes criticizing the former president.
Ryan Wesley Routh, who authorities suspect of planning to attack the former president while he was playing a round of golf, posted comments on an X account linked to him referencing Trump’s assassination attempt at a July rally in Pennsylvania.
Routh tagged Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in separate posts encouraging them to visit those injured at the rally.
“You and Biden should visit the people injured in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the slain firefighter. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris.
In an April post on X that tagged President Biden’s presidential account, he wrote that Biden’s campaign should: “be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. The Trumps should be MASS…make Americans masters and slaves again. Democracy is on the ballot and we can’t lose.”
In June 2020, Routh apparently said that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but had since withdrawn his support for the former president: “Even though you were my choice in 2016, I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the nominee, but we are all so disappointed and it seems you are getting worse and degenerating,” he wrote. “I will be glad when you are gone.”
Routh also has ties to North Carolina, where public records show he registered as an “unaffiliated” voter with no party affiliation in 2012. He voted in that state’s Democratic primary in March of this year, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Routh has contributed more than $100 to ActBlue, which processes donations for Democrats, federal campaign finance records show.
Routh expressed his strong support for Ukraine in dozens of posts on X in 2022, saying he was willing to die fighting and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.”
“I AM READY TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER, FIGHT AND DIE… Can I be the example? We must win,” Routh said in an X post in March 2022.
Last year, Routh used his personal Facebook account to encourage foreigners to fight in the war. He attempted to recruit Afghan conscripts in a series of posts, starting in October 2023, presenting himself as an unofficial liaison for the Ukrainian government.
“Afghan soldiers. Ukraine is interested in 3,000 soldiers, so I need every soldier who has a passport to send me a copy of his passport so I can send it to Ukraine,” he wrote in one of those posts, which was published in English and Pashto.
Routh’s LinkedIn page says he founded a company in 2018 called Camp Box Honolulu, which builds storage units and tiny homes; a Article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser He said he donated a structure for homeless people.
“Work has never been about money, but about creating structures for people to thrive and succeed,” Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Being mechanically minded, I enjoy ideas, invention, and creative projects with an artistic twist.”
The company’s website says it uses standard, inexpensive, fast and efficient construction techniques and materials to “produce solutions to our own problems here on the island.”
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A Hawaiian man who gave Routh a bad review on Facebook told he was baffled by Routh’s response to the criticism. Saili Levi, a Hawaiian owner, said he was shocked by Routh’s response to the review. company that sells vanilla said he had paid Routh $3,800 up front to build a trailer for his business, but when Levi went to Routh’s shop to evaluate his work, it was shoddy.
Levi said that when he asked Routh to improve the work via email, Routh became furious with him.
“He started ranting, you know, ‘You think because you have money you’re better than me?’” Levi said, adding that Routh also mentioned going to Ukraine to fight Russia. “I decided maybe I should let it go for the sake of my family.”
North Carolina records dating back a couple of decades also show he has had run-ins with the law.
In 2002, Routh was arrested after police stopped him and allegedly put his hand on a firearm before barricading himself in a business, according to a article Greensboro News & Record that year, citing police. A law enforcement official confirmed the arrest to on Sunday.
Public records reveal several court cases involving Routh dating back to the 1990s.
State and federal authorities have repeatedly accused him of failing to pay his taxes on time. For example, in 2008 he was assessed a federal tax lien of about $32,000, according to court records.
In 1998, the state alleged he had committed a crime involving a “bad check,” though that case was dismissed.
Judges have also ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs in various civil suits.
Routh’s eldest son, Oran, told via text message that Routh was “a loving and caring father, and an honest, hard-working man.”
The son wrote: “I don’t know what happened in Florida and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from what little I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like the man I know would do anything crazy, much less violent.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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