Ryan Routh was taken into custody after being charged in a Florida court for an incident at a Florida golf course.
Ryan Routh, the man accused of guarding former US President Donald Trump's golf course in Florida with a rifle, has been charged with attempted murder of a political candidate.
Routh, 58, was already facing two weapons charges after he was found pointing a rifle through a fence at a West Palm Beach golf course in Florida while the Republican presidential candidate was playing a round.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate violence that strikes at the heart of our democracy, and we will find and hold accountable those who perpetrate it. This must stop,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Routh has been remanded in custody pending trial. The attempted murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Court documents showed the case had been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who in July dismissed a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office.
Routh has not yet entered a plea. His lawyers have unsuccessfully sought to have him released on bail.
Prosecutors have revealed evidence in recent days that they say pointed to a plot to kill Trump.
They said that months before the incident, Routh had left a note to an unidentified person that appeared to be based on the idea that the assassination attempt would not succeed. The note referred to his actions as a failed “assassination attempt on Donald Trump” and offered $150,000 to anyone who could “finish the job.”
They said Routh spent a month in South Florida and that his cellphone data showed him near Trump’s golf course and Mar-a-Lago estate. He was found with a handwritten list of dates and places where Trump had spoken or was expected to appear in August, September and October, according to court documents.
A U.S. Secret Service agent who was surveying the golf course ahead of Trump opened fire after seeing a man's partially obscured face and gun sticking out through the fence, prosecutors said.
The officer shot Routh, who fled. He was arrested an hour later on a Florida highway.
Routh did not fire any shots and did not have Trump in his line of sight, officials said, but he left behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food.
The arrest came two months after Trump was shot in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has acknowledged mistakes that led to the shooting but has said security worked as it should to prevent a possible attack in Florida.
