This 36-foot Verizon pole, at left, was the closest cell site that monitored the location of the would-be assassin of Donald Trump. Trump had been at the fifth hole of the Trump International Golf Course when a Secret Service agent shot in the assassin’s direction, and Ryan Routh took off in his vehicle, later being captured in nearby Martin County, Florida. Had Trump continued to the sixth hole, likely, he would not have survived his second assassination attempt.
Ryan Routh, the would-be assassin who targeted former President Donald Trump, was tracked by authorities using cell tower data. This information revealed that Routh was surveilling the area and plotting the assassination, according to a document in support of detaining Routh until his trial.
It convinced a federal judge today that Routh should be held without bail pending trial.
The FBI obtained cell site records for two cell phones found in Routh’s Nissan Xterra. The phones are serviced by different carriers that utilize different cell towers.
The FBI’s analysis shows Routh traveled from the Greensboro, North Carolina, area to West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 14, 2024. On multiple days and times from August 18, 2024, to September 15, 2024, Routh’s phone accessed cell towers located near Trump International Golf Course and the former President’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
One of the cell phones contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.
The area around the golf course has no visible macro cell towers other than a 135-foot TowerCom monopole about a mile away since the course is tucked in next to the West Palm Beach International Airport.
The nearest cell site structure to where Routh was hiding in the golf course shrubbery with his rifle was a 36-foot Verizon pole, which was ironically located on Gun Club Road, about a half mile from his sniper’s nest at the entrance to the Palm Beach County Criminal Justice Complex.
As part of the FBI’s investigation, agents recently reviewed Routh’s book, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII and the End of Humanity,” authored in February 2023.
In the book, Routh stated that he “must take part of the blame for the [person] that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal. No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.”