New Trump assassination plot linked to would-be Ukraine war recruit

On Sunday, September 15, former President Donald Trump survived what appeared to be a second assassination attempt when, according to the FBI, a would-be sniper was seen with an AK-47 near where Trump was playing golf in Palm Beach, Florida.

The suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, is being investigated for possible motives.

Routh, an America who lived in North Carolina, reportedly wanted to join the Ukrainian military in its fight against Russia but was turned down.

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In 2023, New York Times reporter Thomas Gibbons-Neff interviewed Routh for an article he wrote on foreign fighters in Ukraine. And he describes that interview in an article published after the Palm Beach incident.

"I was put in touch with Mr. Routh through an old colleague and friend from Kabul, (Afghanistan), Najim Rahim," Gibbons-Neff explains. "Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Mr. Routh from a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine."

The reporter adds, "Mr. Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban."

During the 2023 interview, Gibbons-Neff recalls, Routh told him, "In my opinion, everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians."

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Gibbons-Neff explains, "My conversation with Mr. Routh was brief. He was in Washington, D.C., he said, and had planned for a two-hour meeting with some congressmen about Ukraine."

Read Thomas Gibbons-Neff's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).