Alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh sought anti-aircraft weapons from Ukraine the month prior to his attempt last year on now-President Donald Trump’s life, the Justice Department revealed this week.

Secret Service agents had spotted Routh in September 2024 with a rifle at Trump’s Florida golf course in what authorities said was an apparent assassination attempt on the former and future president. And now the DOJ is seeking to admit evidence in court arguing Routh had also considered trying to shoot down Trump’s plane with a rocket.

Prosecutors told the judge on Monday, “This Court should admit Routh’s August 2024 attempt to acquire anti-aircraft weapons as direct evidence of his assassination attempt.” 

Routh “sought to purchase the devices online from an associate Routh believed to be a Ukrainian with access to military weapons,” the DOJ said in its new court filing, with the attempted assassin telling his contact via an encrypted messaging app to “send me an rpg [rocket propelled grenade] or stinger and I will see what we can do… [Trump] is not good for Ukraine.”

Routh was indicted in September 2024 on five felony counts, including the “attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate." 

The DOJ alleged he "did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump.” 

He was allegedly hidden in shrubbery and pointing his SKS-style rifle through the fence line of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Secret Service agents spotted him and fired in his direction, forcing him to abort the attempted attack.

The DOJ said Monday that Routh and his associate, whom he believed to be a Ukrainian who could get his hands on military hardware, discussed the July 2024 attempt by Thomas Crooks to assassinate Trump in Pennsylvania, with Routh writing “I wish” before the two began discussing Routh’s attempted purchase of a weapon.

Routh and his contact discussed purchase options, the DOJ said, with Routh asking about the price and whether his associate could “ship it to me????” before Routh then explained his reasoning: “I need equipment so that Trump cannot get elected.”

“Going to the local store for such an item is impossible – however you are at war so those items lost and destroyed daily – one missing would not be noticed,” Routh told his associate. “Do you think Trump will be good for Ukraine?????”

The prosecutors said that “the two continued to discuss the possibility of Routh securing a rocket or missile launcher” and that Routh sent his contact an image of Trump’s plane and wrote: “Trump’s plane, he gets on and off daily.”

Routh's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

The DOJ’s efforts to include this new evidence in their prosecution of Routh was made in a motion to admit potential Rule 404(b) evidence. 

Federal law states that  “evidence of any other crime, wrong, or act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character." But the law also stresses that “this evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.”

Prosecutors said Monday that the attempted RPG purchase evidence is "admissible and intrinsic" because “Routh’s attempt to buy either a rocket launcher or an anti-aircraft 'stinger' missile is direct evidence of Routh’s assassination attempt because it is itself a substantial step taken in furtherance of his plot” and that “attempting to purchase a destructive device to blow up President Trump’s airplane lies squarely within the realm of an attempt on his life.”

The DOJ said that “Routh’s attempt to purchase rockets and missiles is also inextricably intertwined with the many other substantial steps he took to attempt to assassinate President Trump between March and September 2024 while also proving his mental state while taking those steps.”

The prosecutors on Monday also told the judge that “this Court should admit Routh’s attempts to coordinate his post-assassination escape to Mexico between February and September 2024 as direct and inextricably intertwined evidence necessary to complete the story of his assassination attempt.”

The Justice Department said that, in February 2024, Routh “began an extensive WhatsApp conversation with a person Routh saved in his phone as ‘Ramiro’ who lives in Mexico.”

“Their exchanges that month culminated in Routh seeking Ramiro’s help in potentially smuggling an Afghan migrant family into the United States from Mexico, with the two discussing the operation’s illegality, the migrants’ lack of status, and the potential need to bribe officials before the exchange concluded with Routh objecting to Ramiro’s proposed price,” the DOJ said, adding that in September 2024, just before he tried to assassinate Trump, “Routh told Ramiro that he would be in Mexico City in the days immediately after September 15, with Ramiro responding that he would see Routh then and that he was located four hours outside of Mexico City and with Routh replying that he would call Ramiro once he knew for sure whether he’d meet him—something Routh planned through extensive web searches about travel to Mexico.”

Prosecutors also said Monday that the judge should admit as evidence Routh’s prior 2002 conviction in North Carolina for “possessing a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).”

The DOJ said that, two decades ago, Routh had unlawfully possessed a “binary explosive device with a detonation cord and a blasting cap” – which the DOJ said was essentially dynamite – and that Routh pleaded guilty in December 2002 to possessing a “weapon of mass death and destruction.”

Prosecutors said that the “WMD conviction not only shows Routh’s comfort with devices that may cause death or grave injury, but also shows that he was indeed capable of intending to do the extraordinary. Routh stands accused not just of intending to kill someone, but of intending to kill a major candidate to be the most powerful leader in the free world. A prior conviction for possessing a weapon of mass death and destruction – as dynamite would – supports the idea that he was perfectly fine with the idea of committing an act of extreme violence in public causing massive public consequences.”

Routh was interviewed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials when he returned from Ukraine in 2023 and was flagged for further investigation based on spontaneous comments he made to agents, but the Homeland Security Department declined to act, Just the News previously reported.

The June 2023 encounter with Routh at the Honolulu airport was confirmed in U.S. border entry records reviewed by Just the News and was another example of missed law enforcement opportunities dating back to 2019 to stop or further investigate the alleged would-be assassin.

The records showed that CBP officials knew that Routh had traveled to Warsaw, Poland, near the Ukraine border, and to Istanbul, Turkey, in 2022 and 2023 and had admitted in his interview that he had been recruiting as many as 100 foreign fighters from Taiwan, Afghanistan and Moldova to join Ukraine's war against the Russian invasion.

Routh even gave U.S. agents who interviewed him a business card that portrayed him as the director of a group called the "International Volunteer Center" that also claimed to have contacts in Syria, Pakistan and Israel. He also described who had underwritten his efforts to recruit foreigners to assist Kyiv.

“Subject is a USC [U.S. citizen] who had traveled to Kiev, Ukraine for 3 months to help recruit Soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova, and Taiwan, to fight in the Ukrainian war against Russia,” the CBP interview notes of Routh state.

“Subject stated that he does not get paid for his recruiting efforts and all his work for the Ukrainian government is strictly volunteer work Subject provided his recruiting business card (cards have been uploaded into the event) which list his recruiting partners that he speaks with to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Romanian, Pakistan, Syria, and Israel,” the note added. "Subject stated that he obtains money from his wife to help fund his trips to Ukraine."

The memo stated that the Ukraine advocate was referred to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the lead investigative organ of the Homeland Security Department, but the division declined to pursue the matter.

“HSI was contacted and refused the case,” the interview memo stated.

The CBP memos show agents flagged his foreign travel and reported contacts with individuals in several countries to recruit fighters for the war in Ukraine. The memos added to a body of evidence showing federal law enforcement had multiple moments where suspicions were raised about Routh long before his alleged assassination attempt.

Routh was flagged in 2019 and was under suspicion for possessing a firearm while a felon, FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri of the Miami Field Office revealed last year. Veltri said that “in following up on the tip, the alleged complainant was interviewed and did not verify providing the initial information” and that the bureau “passed the information to local law enforcement in Honolulu.”

A nurse that interacted with Routh while she was volunteering in Ukraine also told the Wall Street Journal she reported Routh to USCBP on her return from the country in June 2022. 

Chelsea Walsh, the nurse who volunteered in Kyiv in 2022, claims she told Border Protection agents about several encounters she had with Routh in the country when she returned to Washington’s Dulles Airport one year before Routh’s interview in Honolulu. She told authorities she suspected Routh was dangerous and exhibited “Overall Predatory Behavior (or antisocial traits),” according to her notebook that she shared with the outlet.

Routh’s foreign travel to Ukraine and plans to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers to fight against Russia all likely put Routh in the crosshairs of other U.S. intelligence agencies, Just the News also previously reported.

A court filing by the DOJ in September stated that Routh had written a letter addressed to “The World” which stated, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.” The handwritten letter also argued that Trump “ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.”

Routh also wrote an apparently self-published book in February 2023 titled Ukraine’s Unwinnable War. In it, Routh took “part of the blame” for electing Trump and said: “Iran, I apologize.” He directed a message to Iran: “You’re free to assassinate Trump… No one here in the U.S. seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.”

He also wrote in his book that “we must get to a place where every leader is always a woman so that we can avoid this testosterone driven insanity and macho bullshit.”