Suspect in Trump assassination attempt veers off topic and forfeits opening statement at trial

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FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A suspect on trial for trying to assassinate President Donald Trump while he played golf in South Florida last year forfeited his right to continue making an opening statement on Thursday when he veered off topic and talked about Adolf Hitler and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Ryan Routh, who is representing himself, was warned by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to stay on topic. The judge twice asked jurors to leave the courtroom so she could deal with the unconventional turn in Routh's opening statement.

Both Routh and prosecutors had been given 40 minutes each to make opening statements, but Routh's initial argument, read from a written statement, lasted less than 10 minutes before the judge said he had forfeited the right to continue because he was addressing unrelated matters.

“I gave you one more chance and you continued to read what has no relevance for this case," Cannon said.

During the prosecution's opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Shipley told jurors that Routh wanted to make sure that Trump wasn't re-elected to the White House.

“This plot was carefully crafted and deadly serious,” Shipley said.

Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Prosecutors have said Routh, 59, methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.

Five witnesses testified Thursday, including two Secret Service agents, two FBI agents and a witness who followed Routh in his car after the shooting so he could write down his license plate.

Tommy McGee, the witness, testified that he was driving by the golf course when he heard the gunshot and saw a man running out of bushes into the street, almost hitting his car. McGee said the suspect looked at him straight in the eye. Once the suspect jumped in a car and fled, McGee said, he followed him out of a desire to help the police, not realizing that Trump was involved.

Routh asked only a few questions of the witnesses on cross-examination, and when he did he referred to himself in the third-person, leading to some awkward exchanges with Secret Service Agent Robert Fercano, who had spotted him in the bushes. Routh asked the agent if he had been harmed by what happened, and Fercano replied, "I wasn’t physically harmed, but I was mentally harmed from you pointing a gun at me."

Fercano described being in a golf cart only five feet (1.5 meters) from Routh when he saw him pointing a gun from the bushes.

The trial began nearly a year after prosecutors say Fercano thwarted the attempt to shoot the Republican presidential nominee. It's expected to run two or three weeks. The trial’s start comes as police search for the gunman who killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk at a campus in Utah on Wednesday in what political leaders are calling an assassination.

Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he was arrested in 2002 for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch (25.4-cm) fuse.