Trump assassination attempt: suspect left note intending to kill president, US$150,000 bounty

The man accused in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump at a golf course in Florida left behind a note saying that he intended to kill the former president and maintained in his car a handwritten list of dates and venues where Trump was to appear, the Justice Department said on Monday.

The new allegations were included in a detention memo filed ahead of a hearing on Monday, at which the Justice Department was expected to argue that 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh should remain locked up as the case moves forward.

The details are meant to buttress prosecutors’ assertions that Routh is a threat to public safety with a premeditated plan to kill Trump – a plot officials say was thwarted by a Secret Service agent who spotted a rifle poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing.

The note was placed in a box dropped off months earlier at the home of an unidentified person, who did not open it until after last Sunday’s arrest. The box also contained ammunition, a metal pipe, building materials, tools, phones and various letters. The person who received the box and contacted law enforcement was not identified in the Justice Department’s detention memo.

One note, addressed “Dear World,” appears to have been premised on the idea that the assassination attempt would be unsuccessful.