Ryan Routh, who was accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at his Florida golf course, has pleaded not guilty to the charges in a federal court.
According to prosecutors, Ryan Routh, 58, was spotted with a rifle as he hid in the bushes near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach earlier this month.
A Secret Service officer protecting Donald Trump allegedly spotted his rifle barrel poking through a fence and opened fire. Ryan Routh fled and was later arrested on Interstate 95, a main highway through the state.
In addition to the attempted assassination of Trump, Ryan Routh has been charged with firearms offences and assaulting an officer.
Image source Wikipedia
On September 30, Ryan Routh appeared in court handcuffed and wearing a brownish prison jumpsuit, according to CBS News.
After each count was read to him, he shook his head in acknowledgment of the charges.
His attorneys entered a plea of not guilty and requested a trial by jury. The hearing lasted around five minutes.
If convicted, Ryan Routh faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on the assassination charge.
An earlier court filing showed that Ryan Routh had written a note months ago saying he intended to kill the former president.
In a pre-written letter addressed to “The World” and sent to an unnamed witness months earlier, Routh appears to pre-empt a failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
“I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” the letter reads, with the offer of a cash reward to anyone “who can complete the job”.
Ryan Routh has been held in prison in Florida since his arrest on September 15.
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.
He 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.
Ryan Routh’s alleged plot was the second attempt on Trump’s life after Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old armed with an AR-style rifle, opened fire on the former president during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by counter-snipers.
The Secret Service, the government agency tasked with protecting the president and other politicians and their family members, came under heavy criticism for allowing a gunman to get so close to the former president.
The agency is also responsible for protecting foreign leaders during US visits.
Republican nominee Donald Trump was rushed off the stage by Secret Service during a rally in Reno, Nevada, when a man appeared to rush the stage.
Donald Trump noticed a protestor in the crowd and told event security to remove him.
Security personnel ran to the stage and grabbed him by the shoulders and rushed him behind the curtain.
Images emerged on social media of armed guards encircling someone on the ground.
Security led a bald man out of the convention hall as the crowd cheered and also booed the protestor. Moments later, a rally speaker took to the stage to tell the unsettled crowd that “nobody is going to stop this movement”.
Image source CNN
Donald Trump returned to the stage moments later to continue his speech.
The incident took place about 35 minutes into his speech and he spoke for another 10 minutes after returning to the stage.
The Republican candidate, who didn’t appear unsettled, briefly addressed the incident before jumping back into his speech: “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped. Never ever be stopped.
“I want to thank the Secret Service. These guys are fantastic – they don’t get enough credit.”
A few minutes later, he paused to thank his supporters for helping to protect him as the man rushed the stage.
“I want to thank all these people,” Donald Trump said, pointing to the area where the man was stopped.
“I saw what you were doing – that’s a tough group of people right there. I saw that, that was pretty amazing. Nobody messes with our people,” he added.
No weapon was found on the man, according to ABC News. However, shouts from the crowd about a gun elevated the Secret Service’s response.
Donald Trump’s campaign released a brief statement that echoed his appreciation for Secret Service, but did not provide any additional information as to what had occurred.
The incident came during a slew of Donald Trump rallies three days before the election, as the Republican presidential nominee and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton criss-cross the country before Election Day.
The Secret Service is looking into a “cyber breach” after what appeared to be a scan of First Lady Michelle Obama’s passport was published online.
The hacking group DC Leaks posted on its Twitter account this morning what appears to be a scanned copy of Michelle Obama’s passport, along with several White House staffers’ private communications.
The scan appeared to have been taken from a Gmail account belonging to a White House employee, a spokesman said.
Photo Getty Images
Other confidential information was published online, including travel details, names, social security numbers and birth dates of members of staff.
The White House said it had not yet verified the documents.
DCLeaks.com, the hacker group which last week published personal emails from an account belonging to former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s emails, claimed responsibility for the hack.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the incident was “something that we are looking into”. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the breach “should be a wake-up call for all of us”.
Josh Earnest said that the employee targeted by the hackers was a contract worker and not a permanent member of staff.
He said: “At this point I cannot announce any sort of conclusion that’s been reached about the individual or individuals that may have been responsible for the cyber breach that resulted in this information being leaked.”
The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the President and First Lady, said it was “concerned” about the apparent hacking.
“The Secret Service is concerned any time unauthorized information that might pertain to one of the individuals we protect, or our operations, is allegedly disclosed,” said communications director Cathy Milhoan.
Secret Service has launched an investigation after Donald Trump’s ex-butler, Anthony Senecal, called for the death of President Barack Obama.
In a Facebook post, Anthony Senecal wrote that Barack Obama “should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent in his first term”.
Anthony Senecal worked for Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, for nearly 30 years.
However, the Trump campaign quickly disavowed Anthony Senecal’s remarks, saying: “He is not employed by Mr. Trump, and hasn’t been since June of 2009.”
Photo Facebook
Donald Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks added in a statement: “We strongly condemn these horrible comments from Mr. Senecal.”
Anthony Senecal’s post, which was not public, was first reported by Mother Jones, but he later confirmed its authenticity to several news organizations.
On May 12, Anthony Senecal, 84, told CNN that President Barack Obama should be “hung” outside the White House. He also called the White House the “White Mosque”.
The New York Times profiled Anthony Senecal in March, saying despite retiring in 2009 he has stayed at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as “a kind of unofficial historian”.
According to the publication, Anthony Senecal “understands Mr. Trump’s sleeping patterns and how he likes his steak (“It would rock on the plate, it was so well done”), and how Mr. Trump insists – despite the hair salon on the premises – on doing his own hair”.
Two senior Secret Service agents are being under investigation after a car crash at the White House.
The collision happened during the evening on March 4, Secret Service said.
According to the Washington Post, the agents drove the car into a security barricade after a night of drinking and partying.
The crash is the latest in a series of embarrassing incidents involving the agency charged with protecting President Barack Obama.
Photo AFP/Getty Images
The Washington Post has identified the agents as Mark Connolly, deputy in charge of the president’s security detail, and George Ogilvie, a senior supervisor in the agency’s Washington office.
They had been attending a party at a nearby bar before the incident occurred, the Post reported.
Witnesses reportedly saw the officers in a car with illuminated emergency lights and said they had shown their badges in an attempt to get through a secured section of the White House complex.
The car ran through security tape and hit temporary barricades that had been set up while security services investigated a suspicious package.
Over the past several months, several of the agency’s top officials have been forced to step down following multiple security lapses. A man from Texas was able to scale a fence and run into the White House while brandishing a knife before being detained.
The Secret Service is charged with protecting the president, vice-president, their families and other officials.
Secret Service staff recovered a small drone from the grounds of the White House, US media report.
A spokesman for President Barack Obama confirmed that a “device” had been discovered but said it posed no immediate danger.
Barack Obama and the First Lady are currently on a visit to India.
The Secret Service, which is tasked with the president’s security, has been criticized for recent lapses, leading to a leadership reorganization.
In September a man armed with a knife scaled the White House perimeter fence and gained access to the building.
Photo AP
Days earlier an armed private security guard had been allowed to ride in the same lift as the president.
Although President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were in New Delhi when the device was found, their children are believed to be in Washington DC, according to the New York Times.
At a press briefing in India, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: “I don’t have any reason to think at this point that the first family is in any danger.”
Although he did not specify what kind of “device” had been found, US media reports described it as a small drone.
Many such drones are available commercially or used as toys, unlike the larger versions used in a military capacity.
The White House security report has found that an intruder armed with a knife managed to dodge guards and enter the building because of poor communication and a series of lapses.
Omar Gonzalez jumped over the fence in September, ran past guards and was only stopped deep inside the building.
An official US inquiry says Secret Service agents – including one with an attack dog – did not react on time or in the right manner.
The Secret Service chief, Julia Pierson, resigned, partly as a result of this breach.
She stepped down after details emerged of this incident, and of previous breaches in the security surrounding the president.
The latest findings about the September incident are part of a broader inquiry into the lapses, led by the Department of Homeland Security.
According to The New York Times, an executive summary of the inquiry released on Thursday night said the blame for the breach lay with “performance, organization and technical” failures.
Several lapses were highlighted in the report, pointing to a lack of training, bad staffing decisions and failures in communication.
The report described in detail how agents had missed a series of opportunities to stop Omar Gonzalez – on the evening of the intrusion as well in the run-up to it.
Omar Gonzalez scaled the fence at a point where a spike was missing, the report said.
Many officers at a gate on Pennsylvania Avenue did not have a clear view of him because of a construction project.
An officer with an attack dog on the White House driveway was using his mobile phone at the time, and did not hear warnings on his radio earpiece, or on another radio, which had been stashed away in a locker.
Two officers who were pursuing Omar Gonzalez did not expect him to pass through thick bushes, which he did.
Doors into the White House that officers had assumed were locked turned out to be open. Some officers also hesitated to follow Omar Gonzalez because they did not know the layout of the building, the report said.
Once inside the building, the report said Omar Gonzalez was able to push past a female officer, who was smaller than him and who had accidently reached for her torch instead of a metal baton.
He was eventually tackled in the East Room, a long, ornately-decorated chamber used for presidential addresses and formal receptions.
Early on in the intrusion, warnings were not relayed properly to agents inside the White House building because alarm systems and radios failed to function as intended.
The report also cited failings in the run-up to the intrusion, as the former soldier’s suspicious behavior had attracted the attention of the authorities several times.
Omar Gonzalez was stopped in Virginia in July. Then, officers found two powerful rifles, four handguns and other firearms and ammunition in his vehicle along with a map marking the White House.
President Barack Obama and his family were not at the White House when the intrusion happened, having departed about 10 minutes earlier by helicopter.
Omar Gonzalez has been indicted on charges including unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson has resigned following several high-profile security lapses.
Julia Pierson offered her resignation to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on October 1.
On September 30, Julia Pierson faced angry questions in Congress about a major breach of White House security.
News of another incident involving an armed man allowed in an elevator with President Barack Obama compounded calls for her to go.
“Today Julia Pierson, the Director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it,” Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson wrote in a statement.
“I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the Nation.”
President Barack Obama also expressed his appreciation to Julia Pierson for her long history of public service, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on October 1.
Julia Pierson offered her resignation because “she believed it was in the best interests of the agency to which she has dedicated her career”, Josh Earnest added.
Julia Pierson faced angry questions in Congress about a major breach of White House security
In an interview with Bloomberg News after her resignation was announced, Julia Pierson said she knew Congress had “lost confidence in my ability to run the agency”.
Joseph Clancy, in charge of the presidential protective division of the Secret Service, will take over as acting interim director.
High-ranking members of the Congress had been calling for Julia Pierson’s resignation in the wake of her testimony before a House oversight committee on September 30.
There Julia Pierson acknowledged the Secret Service security plan was “not executed properly” during a recent breach of the White House.
On September 19, suspect Omar Gonzalez, 42, allegedly scaled a fence and gained entry to the White House while carrying a knife.
On October 1, Omar Gonzalez pleaded not guilty to charges against him, including entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors say Omar Gonzalez jumped the main fence around the White House and gained entry inside through an unlocked door, then barreled past a guard and ran into the East Room before being tackled.
The incident is the latest in a string of security lapses overseen by the Secret Service, tasked with guarding the Obama family.
On September 16, President Barack Obama is said to have been in an Atlanta elevator with an armed security contractor who had assault convictions.
This contravened a protocol that only members of the Secret Service are allowed to carry weapons in the presence of the president.
President Barack Obama rode in an elevator this month with an armed security contractor who had assault convictions, in what appears to be another security lapse.
It happened on September 16 when Barack Obama visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
The incident came to light on September 30, hours after Julia Pierson, the boss of the Secret Service, was grilled by Congress about a security breach at the White House.
An armed contractor with violent criminal record got in the elevator with President Barack Obama during his visit at the CDC in Atlanta (photo Reuters)
A Secret Service official confirmed the incident but declined to comment.
The gun was found when the man was questioned after taking a video in the elevator and was immediately fired by his employers, according to newspaper reports.
The Washington Post said the man had three convictions for assault and battery.
“This person was within arm’s length of the president with a gun,” said Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, who was told of the incident by a whistleblower.
It will come as another embarrassment on the day when Secret Service Director Julia Pierson took responsibility before a hostile House oversight committee hearing for an “unacceptable” security breach at the presidential residence.
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson says the agency’s security plan was “not properly executed” when Omar Gonzalez broke into the White House this month, a lapse she said would never be repeated.
At a House of Representatives oversight committee hearing, Julia Pierson took responsibility for the “unacceptable” breach.
She was addressing congressmen angry over the September 19 break-in.
The 42-year-old intruder, Omar Gonzalez, scaled a fence, ran across the lawn, entered an unlocked door and was tackled inside.
Omar Gonzalez made it well into the first floor of the White House, having pushed his way past a guard standing just inside the unlocked door of the North Portico. He was tackled in the East Room, a long, ornately decorated chamber used for presidential addresses and formal receptions.
“It is clear that our security plan was not executed properly,” said Julia Pierson in testimony at the House Oversight committee hearing, where lawmakers of both parties expressed anger at a number of recent lapses by agency personnel and incidents of agents’ misbehavior.
“I take full responsibility; what happened is unacceptable and it will never happen again.”
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson says the agency’s security plan was not properly executed when Omar Gonzalez broke into the White House this month
While acknowledging the recent failure, Julia Pierson said the agency’s “emergency action plans” were “multifaceted and tailored to each threat”.
She said that agents and uniformed officers had apprehended 16 people who had jumped over the White House fence over the past five years, including six in 2014 alone.
Julia Pierson also said they had dealt with hundreds of people who had approached the grounds and made verbal threats or acted suspiciously.
She had ordered a full review of White House security procedures and said “all decisions made that evening are being evaluated, including decisions on tactics and use of force”.
Committee chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said the White House complex was supposed to be one of the most secure places in the world but the breach had exposed serious problems in the protective agency.
“The system broke down on September 19 as it did when the Salahis crashed a state dinner in November 2009, or when Oscar Ortega-Hernandez successfully shot at the White House on November 2011, or when agents engaged in prostitution in Cartagena in April 2012, or when agents showed terrible judgment and got drunk in the Netherlands in March 2014,” he said, referring to previous, well publicized breaches at the White House and scandals involving Secret Service agents.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican, said he was concerned the Secret Service was sending mixed messages when it praised its officers for “tremendous restraint” following the September 19 incident.
Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District of Columbia, said the issues facing the agency were not a “mere question of personnel” and called for a “21st Century makeover” of the agency.
Barack Obama and his family were not at the White House when the latest intrusion happened, having departed about 10 minutes earlier by helicopter.
Omar Gonzalez has been charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon.
The Secret Service has stepped up security at the White House and launched a “comprehensive review” of procedures there after two attempted breaches in 24 hours.
The more serious incident saw a man wielding a knife enter the building on September 19, prompting a partial evacuation.
President Barack Obama was not present at the time of the incident.
The following day, another man drove up to a security gate. Both men have since been arrested.
President Barack Obama said he still had “full confidence” in the Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting senior American officials and visiting leaders.
The Secret Service has stepped up security at the White House after two attempted breaches in 24 hours
The man involved in latest incident, Omar Gonzalez, was only stopped after entering the North Portico doors, the Secret Service said.
Video footage showed the intruder running across a White House lawn after scaling a fence. He was later found to be carrying a 3.5 inch folding knife.
“Although last night the officers showed tremendous restraint and discipline in dealing with this subject, the location of Gonzalez’s arrest is not acceptable,” the Secret Service said in a statement.
“Every day the Secret Service is challenged to ensure security at the White House complex while still allowing public accessibility to a national historical site,” it added.
The president and his daughters had just left the White House by helicopter before Omar Gonzalez entered. The man was later taken to a Washington hospital after complaining of chest pains, officials said.
An apparently unrelated incident on September 20 saw a man drive up to a vehicle gate in the complex and refuse to leave.
Secret Service agents shut down nearby streets and searched the vehicle for explosives.
Officials said Saturday’s incident was an “everyday occurrence”.
The review of security was initiated by director Julia Pierson, who also ordered “the immediate enhancement of officer patrols and surveillance capabilities” around the White House.
A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama expected the review to be conducted “with the same professionalism and commitment to duty that we and the American people expect from the US Secret Service”.
New Secret Service director Julia Pierson’s personal information has been hacked and published online according to new claims now under federal investigation.
The hacking would be the latest in a string of such incidents against top officials that include first lady Michelle Obama and CIA Director John Brennan.
The information on the website included a Social Security number, phone numbers, and a credit report that includes accounts with The Home Depot, Sears, and Macy’s.
It was unclear how much of the data that appeared on www.exposed.re was accurate or who posted it.
The website appeared to have information about other government officials and celebrities that had been published online previously at another Internet address, www.exposed.su.
That address appears to have been taken down after its launch last month.
Julia Pierson’s personal information has been hacked in her first days as Secret Service director
In that one-month period the former site was viewed more than a half a million times, Information Week reports. The latest site reports more than 770,000 page views and counting.
“We are investigating and we are aware of the matter,” a Secret Service spokesman said without commenting further.
Julia Pierson was sworn into office on March 27 and is the first woman to head the Secret Service which protects the US president.
An FBI spokeswoman said they are aware of the reports but she would not say whether the federal bureau was investigating them.
The Internet domain country code for the island of Reunion is .re, while .su was the domain code for the Soviet Union.
President Barack Obama has picked Julia Pierson to be the first woman head of the Secret Service, White House officials have announced.
Julia Pierson, currently Secret Service chief of staff, will succeed Mark Sullivan, who announced last month that he would retire.
The Secret Service was caught up in a prostitution scandal last year during a presidential visit to Colombia.
President Barack Obama has picked Julia Pierson to be the first woman head of the Secret Service
The agency investigates financial crimes, and protects the US president and his family.
Julia Pierson, originally from Florida, joined the Secret Service’s Miami Field Office in 1983.
From 1988, Julia Pierson spent four years with the Presidential Protective Division.
Julia Pierson’s appointment does not require confirmation by Congress.
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