Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced Wednesday that the state has obtained an arrest warrant for attempted murder against Ryan Routh, who is already in federal custody on charges of attempting to murder Donald Trump.
It is a continuation of the back-and-forth between the Biden administration and Republican leaders in Florida over the state’s role in investigating the September assassination attempt, the second attempt on Trump’s life in three months. Routh’s trial date is set for February.
Routh faces five federal charges, including attempted murder of a presidential candidate, but officials in Florida have said the federal government has limited the state’s ability to conduct its own investigation or cooperate with the federal investigation ‘hindered’.
“The FBI has stonewalled Florida’s investigation into the Trump assassination attempt at every opportunity, and I appreciate AG Moody and her team for pressing ahead despite some resistance,” DeSantis posted on X after Moody made her announcement during a morning press conference.
Trump has been critical of the way the Justice Department is handling the second assassination attempt. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Moody said the attempted murder warrant is not directly related to the assassination attempt on Trump himself, but to a car accident that occurred as a result of police stopping traffic on a highway as they tried to catch a fleeing Routh to get hold of.
Moody says backup traffic resulting from the search caused a car accident that injured a six-year-old girl, which motivated the state to file its own charges. The crash happened three or four miles south of where Routh was apprehended, according to an affidavit released by Moody’s office.
“When you couple those horrific injuries to his other criminal conduct, which we believe is at the level of domestic terrorism, his action turns into attempted murder,” Moody said at the news conference.
The threat against Trump’s life while he was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach immediately caught the attention of Republican leaders in Florida after the September 15 incident.
Two days later, DeSantis issued an executive order directing state law enforcement to investigate the attempted murder, and a month later, Moody sued the FBI for what she called at the time an “unlawful attempt to block Florida’s criminal investigation.”
During her news conference Wednesday, which DeSantis was unable to attend due to bad weather, many of Moody’s comments focused on a “new day” that Trump’s law enforcement appointments will mean for the federal government.
She specifically mentioned Trump’s choice of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously held the same position in Florida, and the choice of FBI Director Kash Patel.
“A new day is coming,” Moody said. “The people who were nominated, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, love this country and what it is meant to be.”
Moody, one of the shortlisted contenders to fill the Senate seat vacated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reiterated her support for Trump’s nomination of both Patel and Bondi.
“I expect that next month we will see new leadership at agencies who will rightly reach out as intended,” she said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
