At least four times, tips have been given to U.S. government agencies, including the FBI and the State Department, raising suspicions about the actions of a man now accused of the suspected attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
It’s not entirely clear what was done in response to these reports to stop Ryan Routh or at least put him under increased scrutiny. Still, some people are questioning whether enough was done.
Nurse Chelsea Walsh says she never heard from her again after she reported Routh’s violent behavior in 2022, when he was recruiting foreign soldiers for the war in Ukraine.
“The authorities have definitely dropped the ball here,” she said. “They were warned.”
Some key points from an Associated Press report:
‘Ticking time bomb’
Walsh met Ryan Routh in 2022 in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, when she was a nurse and aid worker and he was recruiting foreign soldiers there to fight the Russians.
Walsh said she watched him become increasingly angry and mad, kicking a beggar, threatening to burn down a music studio that insulted him and speaking with boiling hatred about his own children.
Equally disturbing, she said, was Routh’s obsessive, strangely specific plan to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the various explosives, poisons and cross-border maneuvers Routh would use “to kill him in his sleep.”
“Ryan Routh is a ticking time bomb,” she recalled telling U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in an hour-long interview upon returning to the United States at Dulles International Airport near Washington in June 2022. She said she later reiterated her concerns in separate tips to both the FBI and Interpol, the international police agency.
Walsh says she never heard back from her tips and didn’t think much of Routh until she saw him in the news last Sunday as the 58-year-old accused of stalking Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in an attempted murder.
Customs and Border Protection said it could not confirm whether Walsh met with any of its agents because it does not comment on individual cases. The FBI declined to confirm Walsh’s warning, citing a policy not to comment on ongoing investigations. Interpol did not respond to a request for comment.
Other complaints
Walsh’s story was one of at least four reports to the U.S. government that, while not direct threats against Trump, raised suspicions about Routh in the years leading up to his arrest.
Other matters included a 2019 tip to the FBI about Routh allegedly being in possession of a firearm after a felony conviction, an online report from an aid worker to the State Department last year questioning his military recruiting tactics, and Routh’s own interview about those efforts with Customs and Border Protection that led to a referral for possible investigation by Homeland Security Investigations.
What was done in response is unclear. The agencies involved did not respond to questions from the AP, have no record of such a report or had questions about whether the report warranted further investigation.
Now some people are asking whether federal agencies are vigilant and adequately equipped to deal with the growing number of potential threats coming to their attention every day.
“Federal agencies should be on the highest alert to detect and combat these threats,” said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sarah Adams, a former CIA official who was responsible for the State Department tip, said she decided to take action after learning that Routh was trying to recruit former Afghan fighters with false promises of a spot in the Ukrainian military.
She said she had written a bulletin urging the 50 humanitarian aid groups she was helping in Ukraine to keep Routh at bay, and had her company send a similar online report to the State Department.
“There was plenty to look at,” said Adams, who lives in Tampa, Fla. “I don’t know if they even hired anyone to do it.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said there was no record of any complaints from Routh. He said he could not rule out that “someone has not communicated with someone somewhere.”
Routh’s own words
In June 2023, Routh was pulled aside by Customs and Border Protection agents at Honolulu airport upon returning from Ukraine, Poland and Turkey and asked about his activities abroad.
As first reported by the website Just the News and confirmed in testimony before Congress last week, documents show that Routh told them he had recruited about 100 fighters from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan and that his wife was paying for his efforts.
Routh also gave agents a business card identifying him as the director of a group called the International Volunteer Center.
The documents show that the agents referred Routh’s case to Homeland Security Investigations for further review, but the agency declined to investigate the matter further.
In testimony before Congress on Wednesday, the agency’s deputy director, Katrina Berger, said the agency receives hundreds of such requests a day and that Routh’s comments were not of a nature to warrant his “immediate detention.”
When asked specifically whether further investigation was being waived, she said she wasn’t sure and that she would look into it.
