Former President Donald Trump accused the Justice Department of “downplaying” an alleged assassination plot against him earlier this month and suggested state officials in Florida should take over the investigation and prosecution.
“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”
Federal prosecutors charged Ryan Routh with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number after he was allegedly seen with a long gun lying in wait on Sept. 15 outside the Trump International Golf Club, where Trump was golfing. The DOJ hasn’t ruled out filing additional charges and has hinted that they intend to file more. It is common for the Justice Department to file initial charges and then later additional charges after ensuring the necessary evidence and information has been gathered.
At a court hearing in federal court in Florida on Monday, a prosecutor told the judge that Routh had been in Florida “for one reason only and that was to kill former President Trump.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s remarks.
It was a deeply political statement from Trump, who after the first assassination attempt initially avoided partisan rhetoric around it but this time has not. Harris and Biden have both condemned political violence and reached out to Trump in the aftermath of both attempts.
Trump has attacked the Justice Department for years, accusing the agency of targeting him after it brought charges against him in two separate cases.
A Secret Service agent spotted Routh in the brush, and the agent shot at him, officials said. He was arrested a short time later, and has been ordered to be detained until trial.
The Trump statement rattled off various Justice Department investigations into him over the years, including the probe into Russian election interference in 2016 and prosecutions for allegedly mishandling classified documents and trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution. Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced,” he wrote. “Let Florida handle the case,” he wrote in all capital letters.
DeSantis issued an executive order last week ordering a state investigation into the incident.
