A man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course last year will be allowed to represent himself at trial, a court has ruled.
Ryan Routh, 59, is charged with trying to assassinate then-candidate Trump by aiming a rifle through a fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon approved his request to represent himself at trial, but ordered court-appointed attorneys to remain on standby. “I strongly urge you not to make this decision,” Judge Cannon told Routh, warning that his lawyers would represent him “far better”.
Routh says his attorneys were not answering his questions and that they were “a million miles apart”.
“[I]t was ridiculous from the outset to consider a random stranger that knows nothing of who I am to speak for me,” he wrote in a letter to the judge asking to represent himself.
Routh’s public defenders had requested to be taken off the case because they said he had refused to meet them on several occasions.
The trial is scheduled for 8 September. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm charges.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the assassination charge.
Routh has been held in a Florida jail since last September, when he was arrested on a main highway after fleeing Trump’s golf course. He had been spotted with his rifle barrel poking through a fence at the oceanfront golf course before a Secret Service agent saw him and fired in his direction.
Police say Routh hid for nearly 12 hours in the bushes waiting for Trump, who was playing golf.
Court records suggest Routh had been plotting his attack on the then-presidential candidate for months.
He has a long criminal record, including a felony gun conviction for owning a fully automatic machine gun, and was barred from owning firearms as a result.
Routh’s alleged plot was the second attempt on Trump’s life as he ran for office. A gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, shot Trump in the ear during a rally in July.
Routh was active in recruiting volunteers to fight in Ukraine’s war against Russia, and had a range of eclectic political views, although he was registered as a Democrat and made anti-Trump posts online.
In an earlier letter this year, the 59-year-old had asked to be used in a prisoner swap with another country like Russia so he could have a “swift and useful” death.
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