Jury selection has begun in the trial of Ryan Routh, who is charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump last year at a golf course in South Florida. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon approved Routh's request to represent himself but insisted on standby counsel. Jury selection started Monday, with three batches of 60 jurors arriving at the federal courtroom in Fort Pierce. Routh wanted to ask potential jurors about their views on the war in Gaza and the talk of the U.S. acquiring Greenland, but the judge said those questions were irrelevant. Routh has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and several firearm violations.
A federal trial begins next week for a man charged with trying to assassinate President Donald Trump as he played golf in Florida. Jury selection is expected to start on Monday and take three days, with opening statements planned for Thursday. The court has blocked off four weeks for the trial, but attorneys are expecting they’ll need less time. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon agreed in July to let 59-year-old Ryan Routh represent himself. Routh will be allowed to use a podium while speaking to the jury or questioning witnesses, but he will not have free rein of the courtroom. Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club.
Donald Trump’s campaign released an update on the former president’s health Saturday, one week after he survived an attempted assassination at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The memo, from Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump’s White House physician, offers new details on the nature of the GOP nominee’s injuries and the treatment he received in the immediate aftermath of the attack. According to Jackson, Trump sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear that came “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear." He also received a CT scan at the hospital.
Multiple investigations have been launched into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. They include probes into the crime itself and how law enforcement allowed it to happen at all. But it’s becoming increasingly clear this was a complicated failure involving multiple missteps and at least nine different local, county and federal law enforcement divisions that were supposed to be working together that day at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The gunman prepared for carnage. He was found with a detonator in his pocket to set off crude explosive devices that were stashed in his car parked nearby. That's according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.