The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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The former president was talking about imposing tariffs and other steps he’d take to bolster U.S. manufacturing in Savannah, Georgia, when he veered off topic. He began arguing that he won the recent debate with Harris, despite GOP claims the moderators were against him.

“She didn’t say anything except lies, like bloodbath, like Charlottestown,” Trump said.

He didn’t acknowledge the error, but quickly added that he was “finishing this topic. Because they’ll say, ‘Oh, he fell into a trap” — when in fact, he’d already made a conspicuous mistake.

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Trump was trying to refer to the deadly 2017 violence in Charlottesville between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters. Trump has faced years of criticism from Harris and other top Democrats when he blamed “both sides” for what occurred.

In April, Trump argued that what happened in Charlottesville was “nothing” compared to pro-Palestinian protests then occurring on college campuses around the country, and he has continued to try and minimize it while campaigning for a second term.

But what happened in Charlottesville has nonetheless become a defining moment of Trump’s presidency, and was the reason President Joe Biden cites for deciding to run against him in 2020.

Hundreds of white nationalists descended on the city on Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, 2017. Clashes between them and anti-racism protesters broke out both days, prompting authorities to order the second day’s crowds to disperse. It was after that announcement that a man rammed his car into a peaceful group of counter-protesters. One woman died; 35 others were injured.

Warren Jones Crazybull, 64, of Sandpoint, made at least nine threatening phone calls to Trump’s home on July 31, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit that was first reported Monday by Forbes.

Mar-a-Lago security received a phone call from a phone number with the caller ID “Warren Jones,” and Crazybull made several statements, including “Find Trump…I am coming down to Bedminster tomorrow. I am going to down him personally and kill him,” the court filings said.

Bedminster, New Jersey, is the location of a Trump National Golf Club.

Mar-a-Lago security told the Secret Service that eight additional phone calls making threats were received from the same number, the court documents said.

A Facebook page alleged to belong to Crazybull included more threats of violence toward Trump while also referring to Jeffrey Epstein, “John John Kennedy Jr” and a “shadow government.”

He was arrested Aug. 1 and indicted Aug. 20 in federal court in Idaho. He pleaded not guilty to one count of making threats against a former president.

A trial is scheduled for Oct. 28.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blamed Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats for the threats.

“Kamala Harris and liberal Democrats are the ones who are deranged,” Cheung said in a statement Monday. “There have been two heinous assassination attempts on President Trump, and their violent rhetoric are directly to blame.”

Cheung called on Harris and Democrats to apologize.

“If the Democrats and Kamala Harris do not come out and apologize for their hateful rhetoric and tone down their attacks that have stoked the flames of violence, they are explicitly advocating for and inciting more bloodshed against President Trump,” Cheung said.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Harris has condemned acts of political violence involving Trump.

“As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,” she said in a statement shortly after the apparent assassination attempt in West Palm Beach. “I am thankful that former President Trump is safe.”

According to the affidavit, Secret Service agents confirmed Crazybull’s identity through phone records and by comparing the voice on the threatening calls recorded by a Mar-a-Lago security employee with Crazybull’s voice on a video posted on his Facebook page.

The Secret Service determined his location using T-Mobile phone data, which located him in Montana, according to the filing.

An agent said in the affidavit that Crazybull appeared as if his thought processes were racing and confused and that he seemed “paranoid” in an interview with the Secret Service.

Crazybull said that he would not try to kill Trump but that he would “not let” him become president again, the affidavit said.

The calls described in the court documents were made about two weeks after the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when a gunman shot Trump in his ear during a campaign rally.

Since then, a Florida man was arrested in connection with an incident at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Court documents in that case indicate that the man alleged to be behind the plot — Ryan Wesley Routh — described it as an “assassination attempt” in a letter. A judge in Florida ruled Monday that he would be held pending trial.

A Secret Service official said Monday that Trump’s security was being increased following “recent events.”

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The note was made public in a U.S. District Court filing asking that Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, be held in pre-trial detention. Later on Monday, a judge ordered he would remain in jail pending trial.

Law enforcement was contacted Sept. 18 by a civilian who said that Routh had dropped off a box at his residence several months earlier, the filing said. The witness opened the box after learning of the Sept. 15 incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

The box contained ammunition, four phones and letters. 

One handwritten letter addressed to “The World” said: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

The letter said in part: “He ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled.” 

Routh was arrested Sept. 15 after a Secret Service agent moving ahead of the former president as he was golfing at Trump International Golf Club spotted “the partially obscured face of a man” in the brush along the fence line and the barrel of a rifle “aimed directly at him.” The agent fired at the man, who fled. He was spotted by a witness and was soon after arrested on Interstate 95.

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Routh has since been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The FBI searched Routh’s Nissan Xterra and found six cellphones — one of which contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

Cell site records from two of the phones indicated Routh had traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14.

Further, on “multiple days and times from Aug. 18, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2024, Routh’s cellphone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” the filing said.

Also found in the vehicle were 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in Routh’s name, passport and documents. One of the documents was a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October and venues where Trump had appeared or was expected to. 

Agents also found a notebook with “dozens of pages” filled with names and phone numbers about Ukraine, discussions on how to join the fight on behalf of Ukraine and notes criticizing the Chinese and Russian governments.

The filing said law enforcement learned that the license plate on the Nissan Xterra was not registered to the vehicle, and two additional license plates were found in the car. 

A search of the area where Routh had been hiding near the golf course led to the discovery of a rifle with a scope attached and obliterated serial number, an extended magazine, a backpack and a reusable shopping bag that contained plates “capable of stopping small arms fire.”

On the rifle, investigators found a latent fingerprint on a piece of tape attached to the firearm that preliminarily matched Routh. 

NBC News observed heavy police presence and tape near a row of palm trees and bushes lining the golf course on Summit Boulevard after the apparent assassination attempt last week.

On Thursday, after law enforcement re-opened the road to the public, NBC News identified an opening in the bushes behind the palm trees, which is easily accessible from the public sidewalk. The gap had a view of the golf course and was large enough for someone to occupy.

Routh appeared in Florida court for nearly three hours Monday, where prosecutors alleged he went to Trump International Golf Club with the goal of assassinating Trump. 

“Any established ties to southern district of Florida is for one reason only and that was to kill former President Trump,” the prosecutor said to the judge.

His defense attorney said Routh’s sister is a licensed attorney in North Carolina and was willing to house him if he was released on bail. Ultimately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe ruled Routh would be held pending his trial.

Routh appeared emotionless throughout the hearing, wearing a blue jumpsuit and shackled at his hands and feet. He appeared to nod his head when the defense questioned an FBI special agent about Routh’s social media posts about fighting for Ukraine.

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Walsh was in Kyiv as a nurse and aid worker in the early days of the war in Ukraine. Ryan Routh was there to recruit foreign soldiers to fight the Russians. But Walsh never saw him make much progress and instead watched him grow increasingly angry and unhinged, kicking a panhandler, threatening to burn down a music studio that slighted him and speaking of his own children with seething hatred.

Just as troubling, she said, was Routh’s obsessive, oddly specific plotting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the various explosives, poisons and cross-border maneuvers that Routh would employ “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 hourlong interview upon returning to the United States at Dulles International Airport near Washington in June 2022. She says she later repeated her concerns in separate tips to both the FBI and Interpol, the international policing group.

“There is one person you need to watch,” she said. “And that is Ryan Routh.”

Walsh says she never heard back about her tips and she did not think much more about Routh until she saw him in the news last Sunday as the 58-year-old accused of stalking Donald Trump at the former president’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in an apparent assassination attempt.

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Walsh’s account was one of at least four reports to the U.S. government that, while not direct threats to Trump, raised suspicions about Routh in the years leading up to his arrest. Others included a tip to the FBI in 2019 about Routh being in possession of a firearm after a felony conviction, an online report by an aid worker to the State Department last year questioning Routh’s military recruiting tactics, and Routh’s own interview with Customs and Border Protection about those efforts, prompting a referral for a possible inquiry by Homeland Security Investigations.

What was done in response that could have stopped Routh or at least put him under greater scrutiny is not entirely clear. The agencies involved either did not respond to queries from The Associated Press, have no record of such a report or had questions about whether the report warranted further investigation.

But some people are asking whether federal agencies are vigilant enough or even equipped enough to deal with a growing number of potential threats that are brought to their attention every day.

“Federal agencies ought to be on the highest alert to detect and combat these threats,” said Republican Sen Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Congress and the American people need assurance that the federal government is doing all it can.”

Walsh, who lives just a few miles from Trump’s golf course, said she cannot help but think all of this could have been avoided.

“The authorities have definitely dropped the ball on this,” she said. “They were warned.”

Sarah Adams, an ex-CIA officer who was behind the State Department tip, said she decided to act after learning Routh was trying to recruit former Afghan fighters with false promises of spots in the Ukrainian military.

She said she drafted a bulletin urging the 50 humanitarian aid groups she was helping in Ukraine to keep Routh at arm’s length, and she had her company send a similar online report to the State Department.

“There was plenty to look into,” said Adams, who lives in Tampa, Florida. “I don’t know if they even assigned someone to work it.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said there is no record of any complaints about Routh. He said he could not rule out that “someone didn’t have a communication with somebody somewhere.”

Similarly, Customs and Border Protection said it could not confirm Walsh had a meeting with one of its agents because it does not comment on individual cases. The FBI also declined to confirm Walsh’s warning, citing a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Interpol did not respond to a request for comment.

Walsh showed the AP notes that she took while talking to Customs and Border Protection, and a text she sent to a friend about her messages to the FBI and Interpol with a time stamp soon after she sent them.

Routh, a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years moved to Hawaii, was being held on weapons charges related to the Trump case. His federal public defender, Kristy Militello, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh was never shy about speaking out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world.

He was interviewed by The New York Times, photographed by the AP and other news organizations and appeared in videos from Kyiv making his pitch for foreign fighters. He put out a self-published book last year on Amazon, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” in which he writes of the wisdom of a well-timed killing of a world leader to change history.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote, referring to Iran in retaliation for the former president’s decision to abandon the U.S. nuclear deal with that country. Routh went on to describe Trump, whom he had voted for in 2016, as a “fool” and “buffoon” for the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for pushing a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine.

Walsh said she initially found the wiry, floppy-haired Routh to be just bizarre. But as time went on, she got a darker vibe from the way Routh lurked in the streets, seemed to be everywhere and kept tabs on everyone.

She watched as Routh kicked a homeless man begging for money and then snarled, “The Ukrainians should be paying me for what I am doing here!” She said he talked of his grown children with such hatred — “I wish I never had them” — that it frightened her. She remembers how he threatened to burn down a music studio because people there laughed at him over a song he wrote.

“Ryan was the kind of guy who would blow up a building on Tuesday, just because he felt like it,” Walsh said.

Routh’s musings about killing Putin were echoed in his book published last year that describes an even more far-fetched plan for someone with no military experience: launching thousands of weaponized drones to flatten Putin’s many residences.

But in the end, he wrote, the Ukrainians and disaffected Russians he hoped to recruit as accomplices lost their “courage and will” to pull it off.

In 2019, three years before Routh flew to Kyiv to build a foreign legion, the FBI followed up on a tip that he was in possession of a firearm despite felony convictions from years earlier.

But when questioned, the alleged tipster backed off and did not verify providing the initial information. The FBI then referred the matter to Hawaiian law enforcement for further investigation. Honolulu police confirmed this week they were looking into it.

In June 2023, Routh was pulled aside by Customs and Border Protection agents at the Honolulu airport when returning from Ukraine, Poland and Turkey, and asked about his activities overseas.

As first reported by the website Just the News and confirmed in congressional testimony this past week, documents show Routh told them he had been recruiting as many as 100 fighters from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan, and that his wife was paying for his efforts.

Routh also gave agents a business card that claimed he was the director of a group called the International Volunteer Center.

The documents state that the agents referred Routh’s case to Homeland Security Investigations for further scrutiny but it declined to pursue the matter.

In congressional testimony Wednesday, Katrina Berger, executive associate director of the agency, noted that it gets hundreds of such requests a day and that Routh’s comments did not rise to the level to take him into “immediate custody.”

Asked specifically to confirm whether a further investigation was declined, she said she was not sure and would look into it.

Routh’s criminal history in his native Greensboro, North Carolina, includes a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch-long fuse.

In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. Police alleged in an affidavit that he was selling the items to purchase crack cocaine.

In both felony cases, court records show judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence, allowing him to escape prison time.

Tracy Fulk, a now-retired Greensboro police officer who arrested Routh in the long-ago armed standoff, said she was not surprised by last week’s news about Routh.

“Remembering all the alerts and run-ins and stuff,” she said, “he was kind of ‘out there.’”

___

Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker, Eric Tucker, Matthew Lee and Rebecca Santana in Washington; Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; Makiya Seminera in Greensboro, North Carolina; Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Joshua Goodman in Miami; and news researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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Trump did not discuss specifics about World Liberty Financial or how it would work, pivoting from questions about cryptocurrency to talking about artificial intelligence or other topics. Instead, he recounted his experience Sunday, saying he and a friend playing golf “heard shots being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”

“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said. He credited the Secret Service agent who spotted the barrel of a rifle and began firing toward it as well as law enforcement and a civilian who he said helped track down the suspect.

World Liberty Financial is expected to be a borrowing and lending service used to trade cryptocurrencies, which are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Exchanges often charge fees for withdrawals of Bitcoin and other currencies.

Other speakers after Trump, including his eldest son, Don Jr., talked about embracing cryptocurrency as an alternative to what they allege is a banking system tilted against conservatives.

Experts have said a presidential candidate launching a business venture in the midst of a campaign could create ethical conflicts.

“Taking a pro-crypto stance is not necessarily troubling; the troubling aspect is doing it while starting a way to personally benefit from it,” Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said earlier this month.

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During his time in the White House, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrency and tweeted in 2019, “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” However, during this election cycle, he has reversed himself and taken on a favorable view of cryptocurrencies.

He announced in May that his campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” leading up to Election Day. He attended a bitcoin conference in Nashville this year, promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds.

Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who has done research on cryptocurrencies, said she was skeptical of Trump’s change of heart on crypto.

“I think it’s fair to say that that reversal has been motivated in part by financial interests,” she said.

Crypto enthusiasts welcomed the shift, viewing the launch as a positive sign for investors if Trump retakes the White House.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has not offered policy proposals on how it would regulate digital assets like cryptocurrencies.

In an effort to appeal to crypto investors, a group of Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, participated in an online “Crypto 4 Harris” event in August.

Neither Harris nor members of her campaign staff attended the event.

____

Gomez Licon contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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What those charges are depends on evidence the feds may collect from Ryan Wesley Routh, his phone, his digital camera and anything else they can connect to him as they say they are retracing his steps and contacts for months or years.

His first appearance Monday in federal court in West Palm Beach is just the first step in a process that could put the 58-year-old convicted felony away for decades.

For now, Routh is only charged with possessing an SKS semi-automatic rifle with an obliterated serial number and possessing it as a convicted felon.

“They needed some sort of immediate charge as a placeholder to keep this individual in jail, in custody, while they figured out exactly how much evidence they had, circumstantial or otherwise, to put a full set of charges in front of the grand jurors,” said former assistant US attorney David Weinstein.

He faces up to 15 years in prison on the charge of firearm possession by a felon, with prosecutors citing two prior convictions in North Carolina: in 2002 for possession of a fully automatic machine gun, which is illegal without a license; and in 2010 for possession of stolen goods.

But Weinstein expects more to come.

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“Well, he’s certainly looking at a crime that makes it unlawful for an individual to threaten or attempt to threaten someone who is either a former president, who is being protected by Secret Service, or a candidate who’s running for office,” Weinstein said. 

And if the government is able to prove that he brandished the rifle he left behind in the bushes to that threat – as seems likely – the government could seek a firearms enhancement that would produce an additional 7-year minimum mandatory sentence, Weinstein said.*

As for evidence of what he intended, consider he could have been secreted in the bushes as close as 800 feet from where Trump would be putting on the fifth green of his golf course.

A virtual tour of the sixth hole on Trump International Golf Club’s website provides a bird’s-eye view of where the former president would be headed next — directly toward Routh’s sniper nest in the bushes.

Routh’s criminal complaint states his cellphone placed him in the area of the golf course for nearly 12 hours before he was spotted and fled Secret Service gunfire north into Martin County, where deputies took him into custody.

Depending on how many cell towers were nearby, his exact location over that time is hard to determine.

“It can’t put you pinpointed at a specific location within feet,” Weinstein said. “It can put you in a general area. And so they will then have circumstantial evidence that he was in that particular general area based on the triangulation of the cell phone towers.” 

That and what was found in the bushes – the rifle with scope bookended by two backpacks containing anti-ballistic ceramic plates – could be enough to support more charges, including assaulting the Secret Service agent who spotted the rifle barrel pointed his way and the former president himself, who was still playing the fifth hole.

“That’s something they’re going to have to hash out based on witness testimony, any other surveillance cameras that might have been in the area to determine whether or not that’s an additional charge they’re going to tack on as well,” Weinstein said.

As for Routh, who’s faced dozens of criminal charges in North Carolina, where he lived before moving to Hawaii sometime before 2020, his social media posts show early support but then disappointment with Trump.

He also gave interviews in Ukraine, where he traveled in 2022 and sought to fight against the Russian invaders.

In an interview with Newsweek Romania, he said, “Everybody should be here supporting the army. But I’m 56, so initially they’re, like, well I have no military experience and so they’re, like, you’re not an ideal candidate.”

He went on to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It seems asinine we have a leader in a country that does not understand the concept of being unselfish and being generous and being kind and just basic moral values that are required by human beings these days,” he said of Putin.

Routh’s next court date is scheduled for Sept. 23 when, if he challenges his detention, the government will present evidence and argue why he should remain in custody.

At some point, Weinstein said, expect a grand jury indictment to bring the most serious charges the government can muster.

**Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story published September 16th quoted Weinstein saying use of a firearm in the crime could result in a 30-year minimum mandatory sentence, but he clarified September 17th that applies to automatic weapons. A semi-automatic rifle, like the one recovered Sunday, would produce a 7-year minimum mandatory sentence, Weinstein said.

In the presidential debate and in recent TV interviews, Trump and Sen. Vance, R-Ohio, have depicted the former president as selflessly choosing to protect the ACA, or “Obamacare,” during his four years in office as a way to put country over politics.

“Obamacare was lousy health care. Always was. It’s not very good today. … I had a choice to make when I was president: Do I save it and make it as good as it can be? Never going to be great. Or do I let it rot? And I felt I had an obligation, even though politically it would have been good to just let it rot and let it go away,” Trump said at the recent ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. “And I saved it. I did the right thing.”

On NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, Vance echoed his remarks by saying Trump “actually protected those 20 million Americans from losing their health coverage” and “chose to build upon” the ACA when he “could’ve destroyed” it. Vance added: “It illustrates Donald Trump’s entire approach to governing, which is to fix problems.”

Both Trump and Vance are misrepresenting the facts.

As president, Trump fought to repeal and undo the ACA using executive action, legislation and lawsuits.

“Trump was not successful as president in undoing the ACA, but it was not for lack of trying,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research group. “Trump encouraged congressional efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, and then took administrative steps to try to weaken it when the legislative route failed.”

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order proclaiming: “It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

He ordered agencies to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of provisions they deemed burdensome.

Trump made good on his promise to pursue repeal. It was the first major item on the Republican-led Congress’ agenda in 2017. In May, the House passed the American Health Care Act, a bill to undo ACA subsidies and regulations, which was projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to lead to 23 million fewer people with insurance. Trump celebrated its passage in a triumphant Rose Garden ceremony alongside House Republicans.

“Make no mistake: This is a repeal and replace of Obamacare,” Trump said at the time.

The effort fell one vote short in the Senate as three Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona — joined Democrats to vote it down. Trump has since repeatedly criticized McCain for his now-iconic thumbs down on the Senate floor.

The legislative push was never revived, with one exception: Trump and Republicans succeeded at zeroing out the ACA’s tax penalty for most Americans who failed to buy insurance.

But Trump persisted in seeking other ways to take aim at the ACA.

He leaned on his executive power and his administration slashed funding for programs to advertise and promote ACA sign-ups. Enrollment dipped the following year, in 2018, with some blaming the cuts in funding.

“He cut outreach by 90% and funding for community-based navigators by 84%, making it harder for people to sign up,” Levitt said, referring to individuals who helped Americans sign up for Obamacare plans. “He expanded short-term insurance plans that do not have to follow the ACA’s rules, including coverage of pre-existing conditions.”

That fall, Democrats put a dagger in the legislative efforts to undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement when they won control of the House, in part by campaigning on protecting the ACA.

But even as other Republicans sought to abandon what they came to see as a losing political fight, Trump was undeterred.

In 2020, he endorsed a lawsuit that would have wiped out the ACA entirely. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Trump administration formally asked the justices to rule for the challengers and terminate the law, despite the political risks as he sought re-election.

The court upheld the ACA the following year. By then, Trump had lost the election and Joe Biden was president.

Now, as he seeks a comeback in 2024, Trump has occasionally brought up his desire to revisit the ACA battle, calling for replacing the law last fall and declaring that “Obamacare Sucks.” This year, Trump’s campaign has softened its rhetoric against the ACA while still calling for alternatives.

Trump admitted he doesn’t have a replacement plan.

“I have concepts of a plan,” Trump said at last week’s debate, adding that there are “concepts and options” for a better and cheaper system that he’ll outline “in the not-too-distant future.”

Asked when Trump will roll out his plan, campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not provide a timeline. “As President Trump said, he will release more details but his overall position on health care remains the same: bring down costs and increase the quality of care by improving competition in the market place,” Leavitt said. “This is a stark contrast to Kamala Harris’ support for a socialist government takeover of our health care system which would force people off their private plans and result in lower quality care.”

Harris is running on a platform of preserving the ACA, without offering specifics on how she would make good on her call for expanding coverage. She has abandoned her 2019 position of putting all Americans in Medicare. On the campaign trail, the Democratic nominee is seizing on Trump’s debate remarks.

“He has ‘concepts of a plan.’ Concepts of a plan,” she said Thursday at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. “Which means no actual plan.”

“And 45 million Americans are insured through the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “So, understand what that means. He’s going to end it based on a concept and take us back when folks were suffering.”

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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U.S. Secret Service agents opened fire Sunday afternoon on a man who was spotted pointing an AK-style rifle through a fence while hiding in the bushes as Trump golfed at his club in West Palm Beach. The FBI described it as an apparent attempted assassination on the GOP nominee.

At a Pennsylvania rally in July, Trump was grazed in the ear by a bullet when a gunman was able to gain access to an unsecured roof, unleashing a hail of bullets that left one of Trump’s supporters dead and two others badly injured.

While the Secret Service has grappled with how to keep Trump safe as he campaigns across the country, holding rallies that often draw thousands, less attention has focused on his protection when he is off the trail, often at his own clubs and properties.

The fact that there are places along the perimeter of the property where golfers — including Trump — are visible to those standing behind the fence has long been known to law enforcement. While Trump was president, news photographers were often able to capture images of him on the greens by finding gaps in the shrubbery.

Retired FBI Agent Nelson Barbosa told NBC Miami that shooter was likely “waiting for a clear shot at the president, so if he did not have it yet, he wasn’t able to shoot it, but if he would have had that clear shot with the scope and everything he would have been able to shoot the president and this would be a completely different story.”

Former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras explained the agent that spotted that rifle was part of the lead assets that moved ahead of Trump to clear the area as he played. Another team of agents surrounded Trump in a closer perimeter.

“For that agent to spot somebody in the bushes, to notice a rifle, and then also to take aim because that individual was outside the fence,” Poumpouras said on NBC’s “TODAY” show, adding law enforcement was fortunate that a witness saw the suspect getting in a waiting car and captured his license plate number.

Poumpouras said the Secret Service needs more help when it comes to perimeter security: “We’re looking about 300 to 500 yards — that’s about like three football fields at minimum, it’s a far distance.”

“I think at this point it’s really all hands on deck. Secret Service has maxed out their people. They have finite resources at this moment. Long term can they get more agents? Absolutely. But right now, they should be talking and probably are talking to law enforcement partners, asking for more assets,” she said.

While Trump’s plans to golf Sunday were not part of any public schedule, on days he is not campaigning, he can often be found golfing at one of his courses. Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, about a 10-minute drive from his Mar-a-Lago residence, is a favorite. One of three golf clubs he owns in Florida, it boasts 27 holes of championship golf, as well as event spaces. Trump often eats lunch and holds meetings in the clubhouse between rounds.

Trump had just returned from a West Coast swing that included stops in Las Vegas and Utah, and had announced on social media that he would be delivering remarks Monday from Mar-a-Lago about cryptocurrency as he launches a new crypto platform.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw noted at a briefing that because Trump is no longer in office, security protocols around the course had loosened.

“He’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, his security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” he told reporters.

Law enforcement officials praised the work of the agents assigned to protect Trump. One agent, tasked with jumping one hole ahead of the former president to scope out potential threats, managed to spot the gunman’s rifle barrel sticking out of the fence that surrounds the golf club and “immediately engaged that individual,” Bradshaw said.

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In an email to campaign staff Sunday night, senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles credited the Secret Service for saving Trump, who has praised the agents in his own protective detail for their bravery as they rushed on stage to protect him in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“President Trump and everyone accompanying him are safe thanks to the great work of the United States Secret Service,” they wrote.

Unlike other past presidents and typical VIPs who live in private residences with tall fences or in gated communities, Trump has his official residence at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. The club is open to dues-paying members, who mingle with the former president at meals and at events and can invite their own guests to the property.

Many nights, Trump holds court on the club’s patio, playing DJ with his iPad. While president, he once plotted a response to a North Korean missile launch from the candlelit terrace, the meeting captured and posted on social media by a club member.

The club is also a popular Palm Beach venue and hosts a constant stream of fundraisers, weddings and other events that sometimes see Trump drop by unannounced.

Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a social media post that the agency is working closely with the FBI, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement to investigate what happened.

We are working closely with the @FBIHQ, @PBCountySheriff, and other law enforcement partners to investigate the details of today's protective incident in Florida. You can access our formal statement from this evening's press conference here: https://t.co/sYjP5drJ1G pic.twitter.com/pduCSH3pca

— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) September 16, 2024

Trump will be briefed in person Monday by acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe about the investigation, according to a person familiar with the plan who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The incident sparked immediate finger-pointing and calls for answers on Capitol Hill.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair and a close ally of the former president, said she was grateful Trump was safe. “However, we must ask ourselves how an assassin was allowed to get this close to President Trump again?” she asked in a statement.

The leaders of the bipartisan task force that has been investigating the security failures in Pennsylvania said they were monitoring the situation and had requested a briefing from the Secret Service.

“We are thankful that the former President was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., in a joint statement.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s rivals in the GOP primary, said his state will conduct its own investigation.

“The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee,” he wrote in a social media post.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna echoed that message. “Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable,” he wrote. “The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day.”

President Joe Biden said in a statement that he was “relieved” that Trump was unharmed and said “there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country.” He said he had directed his staff “to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

Former FBI special agent Clint Watts told NBC’s “TODAY” there’s a “worry really now of copycats.”

 “We’re in this period that known as stochastic terrorism,” he said. “Essentially, you know what the target’s going to be but you don’t know who the attacker is going to be and you don’t have a lot of threat intelligence on him.”

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Israeli woman freed from Hamas captivity recalls brutal conditions inside tunnels
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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Israeli woman freed from Hamas captivity recalls brutal conditions inside tunnels
• Korean adoptees say they were ‘commodified’ and governments ignored fraud, investigation finds
• How Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella dodge the time-travel cliche in ‘My Old Ass’

The attempt comes just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear.

The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody.

“The threat is very serious and we have to take it very serious,” Barbosa told NBC6. “In this case the shooter most likely was waiting for a clear shot at the president, so if he did not have it yet, he wasn’t able to shoot it, but if he would have had that clear shot with the scope and everything he would have been able to shoot the president and this would be a completely different story.”

Barbosa retired from the Miami field office and he believes the attempt on the former president’s life on Sunday was a serious security breach.

U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

“I would love to know what the motive is and what enticed him to not only be in that area where the president was playing golf, but was he controlled by anyone, was he told ahead of time where the president was going to be and who would have provided that information to him,” Barbosa said.

Since the attempt, Florida lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed their concern over the former president and condemned the violence.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants to get down to the details and announced in a post on X Sunday that the state is conducting its own investigation.

Sen. Rick Scott said he’s reached out to Trump and said the vile rhetoric toward him is dangerous and must stop.

And in a post on X, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she’s horrified to hear about the attempted attack and grateful Trump was unharmed.

“It should have been a higher level of perimeter security especially when it comes to really anyone that is running to become president or even vice president position,” Barbosa said.

As for next steps in the investigation, Barbosa said he expects search warrants will be served and there will be a focus on the motive.

Barbosa told NBC6 the FBI currently has a lot of helpful evidence in this case.

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The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody.

In a post on X, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the state would do its own investigation, and that, “The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee.”

The governor also addressed the investigation to reporters on Monday morning.

The governor was holding a news conference to discuss Florida PrePaid when he was asked about the attempted attack on Trump.

“We’re going to do a state level investigation,” DeSantis said. “We do believe that there were multiple violations of state law. We also believe there’s a need that the truth about all of this comes out in a way that is credible.”

DeSantis suggested concern that the same federal agencies that are prosecuting Trump are also handling this investigation into an apparent assassination attempt.

“I just think that may not be the best thing for this country,” the governor added.

U.S. Secret Service agents stationed a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later stopped by law enforcement in a neighboring county.

It was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. On July 13, Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

And it spawned new questions about Secret Service protective operations after the agency’s admitted failures in preventing the assassination attempt this summer.

The man who was detained had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

“He never asked, ‘What is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” He wrote: “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He returned to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach where he lives, according to a person familiar with Trump’s movements who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear how the development would affect his schedule or campaign dynamics. Trump was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on Monday night on the social media site X and had stops planned Tuesday and Wednesday in Michigan and on New York’s Long Island.

An email to Trump campaign staffers obtained by AP said, “We ask that you remain vigilant in your daily comings and goings.”

“As we enter the last 50 days of President Trump’s campaign, we must remember that we will only be able save America from those who seek to destroy it by working together as one team.”

Biden and Harris were briefed on the matter and each issued a statement condemning political violence. Harris’ added that she was “deeply disturbed” by the day’s events and that “we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”

Biden said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service “has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

In the aftermath, Trump checked in with allies, including running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and several Fox News hosts. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spent several hours with Trump and called him “unstoppable.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity recounted on air his conversation with the former president’s golf partner, Steve Witkoff.

They had been on the fifth hole and about to go up to putt when they heard a “pop pop, pop pop.” Within seconds, he said Witkoff recounted, Secret Service agents “pounced” on Trump and “covered him” to protect him.

Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not announced any public plans for Trump on Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf.

Trump has had a stepped-up security footprint since the assassination attempt in July. When he is at Trump Tower in New York, parked dump trucks have formed a wall outside the building. At outdoor rallies, he now speaks from behind bulletproof glass.

The Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, but there are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump. Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to shelter Trump quickly should a threat arise.

The Palm Beach County sheriff said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the president, but because he is not, “security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

“I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter,” Bradshaw said. “But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done.”

Late Sunday, Trump posted a message on social media thanking the Secret Service and law enforcement for keeping him safe, calling them “brave and dedicated Patriots,” adding that it was “certainly an interesting day!”

He was to be briefed in person Monday by acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe about the investigation into the assassination attempt, according to a person familiar with the plan for the briefing who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Former presidents and their spouses have Secret Service protection for life, but the security around former presidents varies according to threat levels and exposure, with the toughest measures typically being taken in the immediate aftermath of their leaving office.

Trump’s protective detail has been higher than some other former presidents because of his high visibility and his campaign to seek the White House again.

The man in custody was Ryan Routh, three law enforcement officials told the AP. The officials who identified the suspect spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Hawaii in 2018. In 2020, he made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris.

Routh tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, and spent several months in the country, according to an interview with The New York Times last year.

The FBI was leading the investigation and working to determine any motive. Attorney General Merrick Garland was receiving regular updates. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping investigate.

“The FBI has responded to West Palm Beach Florida and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump,” the bureau said.

News reporters were not with Trump on Sunday. Bucking tradition, Trump’s campaign has not arranged to have a protective pool of reporters travel with him, as is standard for major party nominees and for the president. Harris does not have a protective pool at all times, but does allow reporters to travel with her for public events.

Snyder, the Martin County sheriff, said the suspect was apprehended within minutes of the FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office putting out a “very urgent BOLO” — or “be on the lookout” alert.

Snyder said his deputies “immediately flooded” northbound I-95 and “we pinched in on the car, got it safely stopped and got the driver in custody.”

Richer, Long, Tucker and Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Biesecker in Washington, Michael Balsamo, Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Michael R. Sisak in New York, and Meg Kinnard in Houston contributed to this report.

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Local authorities said the U.S. Secret Service agents protecting Trump fired at a man pointing an AK-style rifle with a scope as Trump was playing on one of his Florida golf courses in West Palm Beach.

Here are five things to know about what happened Sunday to the Republican presidential nominee.

Who is the suspect?

Law enforcement officials said the man who pointed the rifle and was arrested is Ryan Wesley Routh.

Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii, where he and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.

Routh frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion. Routh previously told other news outlets that he had been in Ukraine to help its war effort, NBC News reports.

In June 2020, he made a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. That year, he also posted in support of the Democratic presidential campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has since left the party and endorsed Trump.

However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally.

Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.

Records show that while living in Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh had multiple run-ins with law enforcement, including a conviction for possessing a machine gun in 2022. He was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, according to online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records.

The records do not provide details about the case. But a News & Record story from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. The story says he was pulled over during a traffic stop, put his hand on a gun and barricaded himself inside a roofing business. He owned the roofing company, according to state incorporation filings.

How did this happen?

Local authorities said the gunman was about 400 yards to 500 yards away from Trump and hiding in shrubbery while the former president was playing a round of golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Ric Bradshaw, sheriff of Palm Beach County, said that when people get into the shrubbery around the course, “they’re pretty much out of sight.” Bradshaw said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the sitting president, but because he’s not, “security is limited to the areas the Secret Service deems possible.”

Trump’s protective detail has been higher than some of his peers because of his high visibility and his campaign to seek the White House again. His security was bolstered days before the July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania because of a threat on Trump’s life from Iran, U.S. officials said.

What has Trump said since the attempt?

In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!”

His running mate, JD Vance, and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said they spoke with Trump after the incident, and both said he was in “good spirits.” Trump also checked in with several Fox News hosts.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, a close friend of the former president’s, said on air that he spoke with Trump and his golf partner, Steve Witkoff, afterward. They told Hannity they had been on the fifth hole when they heard a “pop pop, pop pop.” Within seconds, he said Witkoff recounted, Secret Service agents “pounced on” Trump and “covered him” to protect him.

Moments later, Witkoff said, a “fast cart” with steel reinforcement and other protection was able to whisk Trump away.

Hannity said Trump’s reaction after this happened — and when it was clear that everyone, including Witkoff, was safe — was to quip that he was sad he hadn’t been able to finish the hole since he “was even and had a birdie putt.”

What is Vice President Kamala Harris saying?

Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential election, posted on X that she had been briefed on the reports of gunshots fired.

“I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.”

The White House said President Joe Biden and Harris would be kept updated on the investigation. The White House added it was “relieved” to know Trump is safe.

What’s next?

Trump has not announced any changes to his schedule and is set to speak live on X on Monday night from his Mar-a-Lago resort to launch his sons’ crypto platform.

Meanwhile, the leaders of a congressional bipartisan task force investigating the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump said they have requested a briefing by the Secret Service.

Donald Trump Sep 15

Donald Trump safe after apparent assassination attempt at Florida golf club

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“We are thankful that the former President was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said in a statement. They said the task force will share updates.

U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who is part of the task force, said he “will seek answers about what happened today and then.”

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U.S. Secret Service agents posted a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.

An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later taken into custody in a neighboring county.

The man in custody was Ryan Routh, three law enforcement officials told the AP. The officials who identified the suspect spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Hawaii in 2018. In 2020, he made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris.

Routh tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, and spent several months in the country, according to an interview with The New York Times last year.

He had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped and didn’t question why he was pulled over, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.

“He never asked, ‘what is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.

The incident was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. On July 13, Trump was shot during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee.

And it spawned new questions about Secret Service protective operations after the agency’s admitted failures in preventing the attempted assassination of Trump this summer.

In an email to supporters after the incident, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” He wrote: “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He returned to Mar-a-Lago club, his private club in Palm Beach where he lives, according to a person familiar with Trump his movements who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Trump also later shared a message on Truth Social, saying, “I would like to thank everyone for your concern and well wishes – It was certainly an interesting day!”

“Most importantly, I want to thank the U.S. Secret Service, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and his Office of brave and dedicated Patriots, and, all of Law Enforcement, for the incredible job done today at Trump International in keeping me, as the 45th President of the United States, and the Republican Nominee in the upcoming Presidential Election, SAFE. THE JOB DONE WAS ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING. I AM VERY PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

It was not immediately clear whether the incident would affect his campaign schedule. He was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on Monday night on the social media site X for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. He planned a town hall Tuesday in Flint, Michigan with his former press secretary, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, followed by a rally Wednesday on New York’s Long Island.

An email to Trump campaign staffers obtained by AP said, “This is not a matter that we take lightly. Your safety is always our top priority. We ask that you remain vigilant in your daily comings and goings.”

“As we enter the last 50 days of President Trump’s campaign, we must remember that we will only be able save America from those who seek to destroy it by working together as one team.”

Biden and Harris were briefed on the matter and each issued a statement condemning political violence. Harris’ added that she was “deeply disturbed” by the day’s events and that “we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence.”

Biden said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service “has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

In the aftermath, Trump checked in with allies, including running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and several Fox News hosts. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spent several hours with Trump and called him “unstoppable.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity recounted on air his conversation with the former president’s golf partner, Steve Witkoff.

They had been on the fifth hole and about to go up to putt when they heard a “pop pop, pop pop.” Within seconds, he said Witkoff recounted, Secret Service agents “pounced” on Trump and “covered him” to protect him.

Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not announced any public plans for Trump on Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf.

Trump has had a stepped-up security footprint since the assassination attempt in July. When he is at Trump Tower in New York, parked dump trucks have formed a wall outside the building. At outdoor rallies, he now speaks from behind bulletproof glass.

The Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, but there are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump. Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to shelter Trump quickly should a threat arise.

The Palm Beach County sheriff said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the president, but because he is not, “security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

“I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter,” Bradshaw said. “But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done.”

Trump was to be briefed in person Monday by acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe about the investigation into the assassination attempt, according to a person familiar with the plan for the briefing who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Former presidents and their spouses have Secret Service protection for life, but the security around former presidents varies according to threat levels and exposure, with the toughest measures typically being taken in the immediate aftermath of their leaving office.

Trump’s protective detail has been higher than some other former presidents because of his high visibility and his campaign to seek the White House again.

The FBI was leading the investigation and working to determine any motive. Attorney General Merrick Garland was receiving regular updates. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping investigate.

“The FBI has responded to West Palm Beach Florida and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump,” the bureau said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the state would do its own investigation, posting on X that, “The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee.”

News reporters were not with Trump on Sunday. Bucking tradition, Trump’s campaign has not arranged to have a protective pool of reporters travel with him, as is standard for major party nominees and for the president. Harris does not have a protective pool at all times, but does allow reporters to travel with her for public events.

Snyder, the Martin County sheriff, said the suspect was apprehended within minutes of the FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office putting out a “very urgent BOLO” — or “be on the lookout” alert.

Snyder said his deputies “immediately flooded” northbound I-95 and “we pinched in on the car, got it safely stopped and got the driver in custody.”

—

Richer, Long, Tucker and Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Michael Biesecker in Washington, Michael Balsamo, Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Michael R. Sisak in New York, and Meg Kinnard in Houston contributed to this report.

“The fact that Donald Trump wants to double down on something so ridiculous just breaks my heart again,” Smith said. “It’s disparaging of a race of people. We are always getting dragged and put as the inferior poster children of what not to be. I’m very disappointed and heartbroken.”

At the same time, this is a moment not only to vigorously dispel “a despicable lie,” but also to illuminate “the beauty of our country and our people. We are hard-working, loving people who add value to communities,” said Smith, a technology company project manager in Atlanta who was one of several Haitians interviewed by NBC News. “Most of us or our parents started with very little and built up our lives, which helps build communities.”

In recent weeks, influential public figures like Trump; Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s running mate; and other conservative figures have spread the rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are stealing people’s domestic pets and eating them. Local police and the city manager have repeatedly said there is no evidence of the claim.

The rumor follows years of insults hurled at Haitians and Haitian Americans, including unfounded claims of cannibalism, and Trump’s hostility toward Haitian immigrants during his administration. In 2018, he referred to Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as “s—hole countries” speaking to senators at the White House.

Neither Vance nor Trump’s team immediately responded to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Haitians have been influential in many parts of American life, Smith said, heightening the “level of disregard when someone running for president doubles down on something that has proven to be not true.”

Smith’s family runs deep in Haiti’s history and politics. A grand-uncle, Francois C. Antoine Simon, was the country’s 18th president. Her father served in communications in the administration of controversial President Jean-Claude Duvalier, also known as “Baby Doc.” When Duvalier was overthrown, Smith’s father chose America over France or Canada as the place to start anew.

“For a country that has such a rich legacy as the first Black Republic, we have not gotten the respect that we deserve all these centuries,” Smith said. “Saying something so asinine perpetuates people’s fears and glorifies the negatives. We are a people of dignity and grace. That’s never discussed. It’s always negative about Haiti. That has to stop.”

Smith added that Haitians are “serious about our food. Haitians’ food is a top-tier tasting cuisine, with all of its flavors and seasonings. And despite the poverty, we will boil grass before we go and eat a domestic animal, like a cat or dog. To say that we did or have is just appalling — especially after it has been proven we didn’t.”

Moses Jean-Pierre, who founded the nonprofit group Hoops For Haiti in Boston, which aids Haitian immigrants with jobs, education and socialization, said he is having a hard time resolving his anger over the accusations. 

“I work every day with Haitian immigrants, and no one works as hard as them,” he said. “They come in and try to be productive members of society. They are just looking for opportunities to work hard and send money back home and start a new life. And for them to be targeted and used as a pawn in politics … well, it really bothers me a lot.”

Because of Haiti’s history of corrupt politics, dismal economy and social unrest, particularly in the capital, Port-au-Prince, the country has become a “whipping boy” for the uninformed, Jean-Pierre said.

“So there’s no surprise there. It saddens me that so many Americans are sharing it and falling into the racism,” he said. “You have a population of businesses in Springfield, Ohio, saying they’re happy for these immigrants being there because their production is amazing. They’re focused on work, not social media. That’s the Haitian people: working to build for their families.”

Nasha Pierre (no relation to Moses Jean-Pierre), a flight attendant in Phoenix, was born in the U.S. to parents who migrated first to Florida and later to Las Vegas. She watched as her parents took custodial and house cleaning jobs to provide for her and her two older sisters.

“That’s the image of Haitians that I know to be real,” she said. “We have a very rich culture and a very loving community. The things that Trump says and all that is going on around Ohio, that speaks to his character, not ours.”

She noticed that Vice President Kamala Harris laughed when Trump brought up the bizarre scenario during the debate. 

“It’s so stupid it’s funny,” Pierre said. “It’s always been his tactic against Black people in general — to use scare tactics and categorize an entire community. And because of that, I don’t personally take offense, because it doesn’t tell the story of my people or my family. We are people of character. Dignified people.”

But she and others said they are concerned about safety because of Trump’s rhetoric. 

“As a Black community in general and immigrants in particular, we are not safe in America,” Pierre said. “It’s dangerous for Trump to be a leader of so many people and say a group of people eat cats and dogs. It’s extreme, but some people believe it no matter what the truth is. And that makes it dangerous for us.”

On Thursday, Springfield’s City Hall was evacuated after it received a bomb threat. The bomb threat “was issued to multiple facilities throughout Springfield,” the city wrote on social media. Mayor Rob Rue indicated to local media that the threat included complaints about Haitians in the city.

Dany Philippe, a salesman in New York, said he felt uncomfortable after he read the story of the alleged incidents Monday and then heard Trump “double down” on” them Tuesday. 

“You look at Twitter or X and you know it puts us in a bad position because people are commenting like they believe it, like we are savages,” he said. “It’s really unreal.”

On social media, Haitians have expressed disgust about the depiction, while others “won’t even entertain something so crazy,” Smith said. “So there’s ‘let’s not talk about this because this is so ridiculous’ group. And then there are those like me that are so passionate we have to speak out.”

“Yes, there is poverty and corruption there and an uprising and all sorts of stuff,” she added. “But that does not define Haiti or Haitians. You never hear people talk about our character or how hard we work and how dependable we are. You hardly hear about the beauty throughout Haiti — there are beautiful waterfalls and beaches and palm trees — and the different types of beautiful people that are there. That’s Haiti. Not some ridiculous tales of eating domestic animals.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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The 31-year-old provocateur and influencer posted photos from ground zero and shared a video of Trump talking with firefighters in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday morning, writing, “They were thrilled to see him.” She also accompanied the former president to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the planes crashed 23 years ago after crew members and passengers fought back against the hijackers.

“HAPPENING NOW: President Trump just visited the Shanksville Fire Department after visiting the memorial site of United Flight 93 and meeting with family members of 9/11 terrorist attack victims in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,” she posted on X on Wednesday afternoon. “NEVER FORGET!”

Loomer said in a text message to The Associated Press that she doesn’t work for the Trump campaign and that she was “invited as a guest.” She did not respond to questions about her past statements about 9/11.

The Trump campaign responded with a statement from an unnamed campaign official. “Today, President Trump put politics aside and stood beside Kamala Harris and Joe Biden to honor those who lost their lives during the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history. The day wasn’t about anyone other than the souls who are no longer with us, their families, and the heroes who courageously stepped up to save their fellow Americans on that fateful day,” it read.

Loomer was also spotted departing Trump’s plane when he landed in Philadelphia for Tuesday’s debate.

Trump has a long history of elevating and associating with people who trade in falsehoods and conspiracy theories, and he regularly amplifies posts on his social media site shared by those like Loomer, who promote QAnon, an apocalyptic and convoluted conspiracy theory centered on the belief that Trump is fighting the “deep state.” During the debate, Trump pushed baseless claims about migrants stealing and eating cats and dogs and later defended his comments by saying he was repeating things he’d seen on TV.

She frequently makes anti-Islam and anti-immigrant posts on social media and has been targeting Trump’s Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, with vile racist and sexist attacks. Last year, she shared a video on X that said “9/11 was an Inside Job!” and claimed it was somehow related to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s announcing $2.3 trillion in “lost” government funds on Sept. 10, 2001.

The post misrepresented Rumsfeld’s remarks, which were about a challenge in tracking funds due to outdated technology. The day before 9/11 was not the first time the problem had been discussed.

The conspiracy theory that U.S. officials are hiding information about the Sept. 11 attacks or were somehow involved in the planning has taken hold among a segment of determined “truthers,” but many of their most prevalent claims have fallen apart upon further scrutiny.

Loomer’s stepped-up presence in Trump’s entourage comes as he has made a number of staff changes in recent weeks, including bringing back veterans of his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, like former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski was known for the mantra “Let Trump be Trump.”

She has long served as one of Trump’s fiercest supporters in the Make America Great Again wing of the Republican Party. She led attacks against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Trump’s behalf during the primary phase of the 2024 campaign and has been deeply involved in pro-Trump politics — and the more extreme elements it has attracted — for years.

Some Trump allies would prefer the former president to distance himself from Loomer, but Trump has welcomed her as a semi-regular presence in recent months.

When she ran as a Republican for Congress in Florida in 2020, Loomer celebrated her primary win at a party attended by controversial figures including Gavin McInnes, the founder of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys. She later lost the 2020 House race to Democrat Lois Frankel. She also ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022.

Social media posts falsely claiming a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, have circulated widely in pro-Trump communities and been boosted by right-wing pundits in recent weeks. 

Even after local officials publicly refuted that the Tren de Aragua gang had taken over the building, sensationalist claims vaguely tying the rumors to the growth of Colorado’s migrant population continued going viral on social media. Trump amplified them further over the past week as he brought up the rumors several times in recent rallies and interviews — and then again at Tuesday night’s debate.

“We have millions of people pouring into our country. … You look at Aurora in Colorado. They are taking over the towns. They’re taking over buildings. They’re going in violently,” Trump said on the debate stage in Philadelphia. “They’re destroying our country. They’re dangerous. They’re at the highest level of criminality. And we have to get them out.”

The viral rumors used “the most common forms of misinformation” tactics, such as reposting old videos without context, misrepresenting existing data and “frankensteining” together misleading pieces of evidence to fabricate a false narrative, according to the News Literacy Project, a nonprofit fact-checking organization that debunked the rumor.

Roberta Braga, founder and executive director of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas, a nonprofit organization that studies the impact of misinformation on Latino communities, told NBC News that the false claims related to Tren de Aragua are just the latest examples of rumors created to feed a broader narrative meant to demonize immigrants.

“We very often see these claims associated with migrants’ being criminals or gang members, claims that portray them as the source of increased crime and insecurity in the U.S. broadly, in a way that puts blame directly on them for what people frame as a decline of American society,” Braga said. 

Residents at the Aurora apartments, many of them immigrants from Venezuela and other Latin American countries, have denied the false rumors of the gang takeover and said they increasingly feel unsafe after having unfairly been deemed criminals.

“Right now, I am scared because of what’s been created, and all the xenophobia hate has increased towards us,” Carlos Ordosgoitti, a Venezuelan man living in one of the Aurora buildings, told NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver in Spanish. “I’m really scared.”

How it all started

The false claim of a takeover began with the owner of three Aurora apartment complexes: an embattled property manager who was facing charges in municipal court because of years of unresolved health and safety code violations.

Rat and bug infestations, overflowing trash, sewage backups, water leaks and deteriorating infrastructure are some of the violations documented since at least February 2021, city officials have said.

But the property management company that owns the buildings blamed a Venezuelan gang for the rundown conditions. Over the summer, an attorney representing the company sent letters to local police and city and state officials claiming the gang had “forcibly taken control,” The Denver Gazette reported.

The claims were echoed by city officials, mostly conservatives, without concrete evidence, KUSA reported.

The allegation picked up steam during the last week of August after local media outlets, including KUSA, reported on a video obtained from a resident showing a group of men carrying guns in one of the buildings and seemingly trying to break an apartment door open. 

Aurora police haven’t yet determined whether the men in the video belong to a Venezuelan gang, KUSA reported.

Aurora police have said they have been investigating the presence of Tren de Aragua in coordination with Denver police. But “gang members are not taking over” an Aurora apartment complex, police said, adding that the gang’s activity remains “isolated.”

“Every time there’s an instance of an isolated crime performed by a migrant in the U.S. it gets cherry-picked and then blown out of proportion to essentially castigate all migrants,” Braga said.

Misinformation spreads despite being debunked

Fragments of the video showing the armed men inside the Aurora apartment building were used in combination with clips from a two-month-old motorcycle parade in Brazil to create an Instagram post falsely claiming that members of the Hells Angels, an outlaw motorcycle club, were on their way to Aurora to “save the city after gangs from Venezuela took over apartments.” The Hells Angels’ Colorado chapter released a statement denying the claims.

Meta, Instagram’s parent company, labeled the post as including false information after its fact-checking partners debunked the claims. But that didn’t stop the false information from spreading as new videos with the same claims but different outdated and out-of-context clips proliferated across social media platforms.

Mert Bayar, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public who researches rumors about immigrants and noncitizens, told NBC News that misinformation pattern seems to reflect an online behavior commonly known among “newsbrokering” social media accounts. Often hiding behind catchy usernames and cartoonish avatars, such accounts “curate and disseminate information about a crisis event” and often fabricate inflammatory content to make it fit a specific agenda.

Another anti-immigrant rumor that spread this week and was repeated by Trump on the debate stage Tuesday night was the  debunked claim about Haitian immigrants harming household pets.

In a joint interview with KUSA, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, said other long-standing criminal organizations in the area remain greater threats than the Venezuelan gang.

But an “environment of hysteria right now over this”  is complicating their ability to ensure Tren de Aragua doesn’t gain a foothold in the area, Coffman said. Coffman even described an example in which some people conflated an impromptu meetup of Venezuelans awaiting the results of their homeland’s presidential election with gang activity.

Aurora police have arrested 10 people connected to Tren de Aragua, KUSA reported.

Despite attempts to dispel myths and rumors about the Venezuelan gang’s presence in Aurora, additional false narratives continued to emerge online, including posts on X falsely claiming that Aurora police had issued a shelter-in-place order in response to Venezuelan gang violence and that Venezuelan gangs started taking over apartments in Chicago after having gained control of one in Aurora.

Both posts remain on X without any kind of label letting users know they include false information. The posts have gotten 26.3 million views and been reposted over 40,000 times. X didn’t respond to an email requesting comment.

Making immigration a political flashpoint

As part of their political platform, Republicans are focusing on hard-line immigration policies and stricter border security. They have often focused on narratives connecting immigration and crime.

Denver is among the cities that have received tens of thousands of migrants over the past year as part of a busing campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, to seek stricter security at the southern border. 

Searching for a lower cost of living, many migrants settled in nearby Aurora, where officials had said they couldn’t help those who had newly arrived, citing a lack of  “financial capacity to fund new services related to this crisis.” Still, some migrants ended up living in the apartment complexes that have been at the center of recent controversy.

When Trump repeatedly called attention to Aurora by suggesting a Venezuelan gang had taken over an apartment complex there, immigrant communities were unexpectedly thrust into a heated political debate.

“People need to be aware that immigration is a common theme that misinformers are exploiting this election season. We should be extra cautious when they come across claims that seem designed to provoke anger, outrage, or fear — or that seem designed to divide us,” Christina Veiga, a spokesperson for the News Literacy Project, told NBC News in a statement. “Voters can avoid having their votes co-opted by falsehoods by being aware of this trend and taking a few simple steps to confirm whether the claims they’re seeing are true.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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Lead singer and guitarist Jack White posted the front cover of the suit, filed in New York District Court, to his Instagram page Tuesday, with the caption, “This machine sues fascists.” It’s a reference to words that folk singer Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar, “This machine kills fascists.”

White Stripes drummer Meg White is also listed as a plaintiff in the suit, which charges Trump and the campaign with “flagrant misappropriation.” The duo seek unspecified monetary damages and an injunction preventing Trump from using their songs.

A Trump campaign spokesperson, as well as a legal representative for the former president, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Jack White had foreshadowed the suit in an Instagram post a week ago after a Trump campaign staffer posted the video to social media Aug. 29, writing on Instagram: “Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others).”

In the suit, the band notes it had previously “publicly denounced” Trump’s use of the same song during his 2016 campaign, adding they “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by defendant Trump when he was president and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.”

The White Stripes join a list of performers taking legal action against Trump for unauthorized use of their music that includes Abba, Isaac Hayes, Eddy Grant, Neil Young, Beyoncé and Celine Dion.

Released in 2003, “Seven Nation Army” has gone on to become a worldwide smash. Despite its garage-rock origins, the song is now regularly heard in sports arenas and became the unofficial anthem of Italy’s national soccer team. 

Austin Mullen contributed to this story

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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The commonality reflects a major shift toward broad public support for legalization in recent years and marks the first time that both major-party presidential candidates support broad cannabis reform, according to the U.S. Cannabis Council.

The Republican presidential nominee posted on his social media platform late Sunday that he would “continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug,” and also said he would be voting “yes” on a proposal to allow the sale of marijuana to adults for any reason in Florida.

Coming shortly before the two will meet for a pivotal debate, Trump’s post sets up the possibility that he could criticize Harris for her past cannabis prosecutions when she was district attorney in San Francisco. Because drug prosecutions disproportionately affect nonwhite defendants in the U.S., the line of attack could also fit with Trump’s efforts to increase his support among nonwhite men.

Harris backs decriminalization and has called it “absurd” that the Drug Enforcement Administration now has marijuana in the Schedule I category alongside heroin and LSD. Earlier in her career, she oversaw the enforcement of cannabis laws and opposed legalized recreational use for adults in California while running for attorney general in 2010.

Harris faced attacks on her prosecutorial record on the debate stage before, most notably from Democrat-turned-Trump supporter Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and announced in 2022 that she was leaving the party.

Trump said during his 2016 run that pot policy should be left up the states. During his term in the White House, though, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted an Obama-era policy that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the marijuana trade in states where the drug is legal.

The DEA process to change the drug’s federal classification is already underway, kickstarted by President Joe Biden’s call for a review. But the DEA hasn’t made a final decision on the shift, which would not legalize recreational marijuana outright. It may not decide until the next presidential administration, putting a spotlight on the candidates’ positions.

Federal drug policy has lagged behind that of many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing recreational use.

About 70% of adults supported legalization in a Gallup poll taken last year, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly 3 in 10 who backed it in 2000. Support was even higher among young voters, a key demographic in seven main battleground states.

“We believe cannabis reform is a winning issue,” said David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council, in a statement Monday.

The federal policy shift would wouldn’t legalize marijuana outright for recreational use. Instead, it would move marijuana out of Schedule I to the Schedule III category, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

The proposed shift is facing opposition from advocates who say there isn’t enough data and from attorneys general in more than a dozen states, according to the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

___

Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

The GOP presidential nominee’s full response fell short of offering a coherent vision or policy for how he’d address child care needs, as he pivoted to promoting his proposed tariffs on imported goods to the U.S. and touting the revenue they would bring in.

Asked if he would “commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable” and “what specific piece of legislation” he would support during a Q&A session at the Economic Club of New York Thursday, Trump said:

“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down. You know, I was somebody — we had, Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka, was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue.

“But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to. But they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country.

“Because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just — that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers will be taking in.

“We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people. And then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about make America great again. We have to do it because right now, we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.”

Trump’s response went viral online after the clip and transcript were shared, sparking criticism from the campaign of Democratic presidential rival Kamala Harris and leaving policy experts across the ideological spectrum baffled.

“Somewhere in that incoherent word salad was a claim that the proposed tariffs could both balance the budget and pay for free child care across the country, which is of course mathematically absurd,” said Brian Riedl, an economic policy expert with the conservative Manhattan Institute and a former policy adviser to prominent Republicans. “Trump sounded like the student who hadn’t studied for the test and was making up numbers.”

The Harris campaign responded by attacking Trump’s tariffs while highlighting her proposals to expand the child tax credit.

“Billionaire-bought Donald Trump’s ‘plan’ for making child care more affordable is to impose a $3,900 tax hike on middle class families,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said, citing estimates from two think tanks on the impact of Trump’s tariff plan. “The American people deserve a President who will actually cut costs for them, like Vice President Harris’ plan to bring back a $3,600 Child Tax Credit for working families and an expanded $6,000 tax cut for families with newborn children.”

The Harris proposal is less aggressive than what the Biden White House has endorsed for families with children, which includes capping child care expenses for the middle class at 7% of income, as well as universal preschool. The Harris campaign didn’t respond when asked if she’d push for those provisions if elected president.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates mocked Trump’s answer during a Friday interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“If you have any idea what the hell that answer means, you’re a better detective than I am,” Bates said, before citing analyses by nonpartisan experts that Trump’s tariffs would limit economic growth.

Reshma Saujani, who asked Trump the child care question at the Economic Club of New York, told NBC News after the event that the former president’s answer “kind of blew my mind.”

“He basically said that child care was not that expensive or that tariffs would solve it,” said Saujani, who is a member of the board and said the club had invited her to ask Trump a question. “That demonstrates to me how out of touch he really is. If you’re talking to parents and moms and families on the campaign trail, they’re talking about child care and the cost of it.”

In her question to Trump, Saujani, a founder of the groups Moms First and Girls Who Code, cited statistics showing that child care costs a total of $122 billion a year and described it as “one of the most urgent economic issues facing our country.”

She asked him to mention a specific piece of legislation he would advance to address the problem.

Trump did not answer her directly. Instead, he talked about the amount of money that would come into the U.S. through tariffs on foreign countries. He seemed to be suggesting that those sums could more than pay for child care needs, although he did not outline a plan for how the government should cover them.

For her part, Saujani believes Trump was making a different point that she called “shocking”: that the cost of child care is not that a big problem for the U.S. when compared to the sums involved in tariff collection.

Asked to clarify his response, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt replied: “President Trump’s first-term economic policies uplifted families by putting more money in our pockets, while making expanded access to childcare and paid family leave top priorities in his Administration. Now in Kamala Harris’ America, hardworking families are struggling to buy basic groceries, diapers, and baby formula for their children. President Trump will make America strong, safe, and prosperous again for struggling American families when he returns to the White House.”

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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The Republican nominee and accuser E. Jean Carroll, a writer, sat at tables about 15 feet apart, in a federal appeals court. He didn’t acknowledge or look at Carroll as he passed directly in front of her on the way in and out, but he shook his head at points, such as when Carroll’s attorney said he sexually attacked her.

Trump attorney D. John Sauer told 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges that the civil trial in Carroll’s lawsuit was muddied by improper evidence.

“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, Sauer said, noting that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the evidence in question was proper, and that there was plenty of proof in the nearly two-week-long trial of Carroll’s claim that Trump attacked her in a luxury department store dressing room decades ago.

“E. Jean Carroll brought this case because Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, and then defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she was crazy and made the whole thing up,” Kaplan said.

Trump left court in a motorcade before staging a news conference at Trump Tower where he said again that Carroll was telling a “made up, fabricated story.” Carroll, standing with Kaplan outside the courthouse afterward, declined to comment.

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The three-judge panel, if it follows the pattern of other appeals, would be unlikely to rule for weeks, if not months.

A jury found in May 2023 that Trump sexually abused Carroll. He denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.

Trump did not attend the trial and has expressed regret that he was not there.

The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has jabbed at Trump over the jury’s verdict, noting repeatedly that he had been found liable for sexual abuse.

And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll.

Trump, 78, testified less than three minutes at the second trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury. Still, he was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial, and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.

The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Trump labeled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterward, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.

Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.

During Friday’s arguments, Trump’s attorney said testimony from witnesses who said Carroll told them about the 1996 encounter with Trump immediately afterward was improper because the witnesses had “egregious bias” against Trump.

Sauer also attacked the trial judge’s decision to let two other women testify about similar acts of sex abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005. He denies those allegations.

Trump’s lawyers have also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”

The judge is no relation to Carroll’s attorney.

Trump has insisted that Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.

Trump’s lawyers also challenged the repeated airing at trial of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” videotape, in which Trump is heard saying that he sometimes just starts kissing beautiful women and “when you’re a star they let you do it.” He also said that a star can grab women’s genitals because “you can do anything.”

In their written arguments, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a do-over” based on unfounded “sweeping complaints of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misstatements or misapplications of the law, and a steadfast disregard of the district court’s reasoning.”

“There was no error here, let alone a violation of Trump’s substantial rights. This Court should affirm,” Carroll’s lawyers said.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

Indictments announced Thursday by the Department of Justice allege that Dimitri Simes and his wife received over $1 million dollars and a personal car and driver in exchange for work they did for Russia’s Channel One since June 2022. The network was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, have a home in Virginia and are believed to be in Russia.

“These defendants allegedly violated sanctions that were put in place in response to Russia’s illegal aggression in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement announcing the indictments. “Such violations harm our national security interests — a fact that Dimitri Simes, with the deep experience he gained in national affairs after fleeing the Soviet Union and becoming a U.S. citizen, should have uniquely appreciated.”

The indictments come at a time of renewed concern about Russian efforts to meddle with the upcoming U.S. election using online disinformation and propaganda. On Wednesday federal authorities charged two employees of the Russian media organization RT with covertly funding a Tennessee company that produced pro-Russian content.

Simes, who led a Washington think tank called the Center for the National Interest, figured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.

The report chronicles interactions that the Soviet-born Simes, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, had with assorted figures in Trump’s orbit, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Before one such meeting, according to the Mueller report, Simes sent Kushner a letter detailing potential talking points for Trump about Russia and also passed along derogatory information about Bill Clinton that was then forwarded to other representatives of the campaign.

Simes’s think tank helped arrange a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at which Simes introduced Trump. Among those present was Sergei Kislyak, the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S.

Simes was never charged with any crime in relation to the investigation.

After the report was released, Simes defended himself in an interview in The Washington Post: “I did not see anything in the Mueller report that in any way that would indicate any questionable activity on my part or on the center’s part.”

A second indictment alleges that Anastasia Simes, 55, received funds from sanctioned Russian businessman Alexander Udodov. Udodov was sanctioned last year for his support for the Russian government. He is the former brother-in-law of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and has been linked to business dealings with both of them. Udodov also has been investigated for money laundering.

If convicted of the charges, the couple face a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Messages left with an attorney for Simes and the Trump campaign were not immediately returned on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York found that there was no good cause to grant Trump’s lawyers permission to even file a motion.

The judge’s order said that in arguing “good cause” to move the case, Trump primarily argued that the state judge presiding over the criminal case, Juan Merchan, is biased against him and that the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling from July presents a valid federal defense for the hush money case.

Hellerstein rejected both arguments, finding first that a state court judge’s alleged bias does not present a federal question that would justify jurisdiction in a federal court.

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Hellerstein also held that his July 2023 conclusion he had made that removal of the case was not warranted — which followed briefing and an evidentiary hearing — remained the same because “the hush money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”

Hellerstein rejected a similar attempt last year, but Trump’s attorneys argued the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity in a separate Trump criminal case presents a valid federal defense to his conviction.

The judge’s decision comes after prosecutors in New York urged Merchan not to allow Trump’s eleventh-hour effort to move the case to federal court to prevent him from ruling on pending motions in the historic state criminal case. 

Trump has asked Merchan to set aside the jury’s verdict because it allegedly relied on evidence of Trump’s “official,” and therefore immune, conduct, but also has requested that Merchan delay his sentencing until after the November election. Both motions are still pending.

“Federal law is clear that proceedings in this Court need not be stayed pending the district court’s resolution of defendant’s removal notice,” the DA’s letter said. It also added that “the concerns defendant expresses about timing are a function of his own strategic and dilatory litigation tactics: This second notice of removal comes nearly ten months after defendant voluntarily abandoned his appeal from his first, unsuccessful effort to remove this case; three months after he was found guilty by a jury on thirty-four felony counts; and nearly two months after defendant asked this Court to consider his CPL § 330.30 motion for a new trial.”

The DA’s office opposes Trump’s efforts to overturn the verdict and contends the impact of the “official acts” that were referred to in the case were negligible.

Merchan is expected to rule on that matter Sept. 16 — two days before Trump’s sentencing.

Prosecutors have also said they would defer to the judge on pushing back the Sept. 18 date in order to give Trump “adequate time” to try an appeal, but also urged him to pronounce sentence “without unreasonable delay.”

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He also waived the right to be present at his arraignment, where he will be charged with the same four counts from last year’s original indictment.

“I, President Donald J. Trump…do hereby waive my right to be present at Arraignment and I authorize my attorneys to enter a plea of not guilty on my behalf to each and every count of the superseding indictment,” he said in the filing.

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Special counsel Jack Smith’s office said in a court filing last week that it would not oppose Trump waiving his appearance on the charges, which are the same as the ones he pleaded not guilty to last August: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Smith sought the revised indictment from a new grand jury after the Supreme Court issued a ruling on presidential immunity that barred federal prosecutors from using certain “official acts” Trump took in his role as president in their case against him.

The new indictment omits evidence from the previous one that could be construed as having to do with official acts, including Trump’s alleged conversations with Justice Department officials and White House advisers about his false claims of election fraud and ways to overturn the 2020 results.

Much of the superseding indictment is the same as the original, with prosecutors maintaining Trump didn’t actually believe the lies he was spreading in the wake of his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden and that he knew that they were not true.

“These claims were unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing, and the Defendant and his co-conspirators repeated them even after they were publicly disproven,” the fresh indictment says. “These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false.”

Smith’s office said in its filing last week that the revised indictment “reflects the Government’s efforts to respect and implement the Supreme Court’s holdings and remand instructions.”

Trump blasted that indictment on social media shortly after it was filed, calling it a “direct on democracy.”

“The case has to do with ‘Conspiracy to Obstruct the 2020 Presidential Election,’ when they are the ones that did the obstructing of the Election, not me,” he wrote.

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Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked Donald Trump to show proof that he never received any money from Egypt, following a recent report on a nearly $10 million withdrawal from the nation’s state-run bank days before Trump became president in 2017.

The Democrats in a letter Tuesday said they were looking into allegations that Trump took a “cash bribe” from Egypt’s president, and that former Attorney General Bill Barr and others blocked a Department of Justice probe into that potential bribe.

The letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, and Rep. Robert Garcia, the minority leader of a subcommittee on national security, was spurred by a report in The Washington Post that revealed the existence of the secret DOJ probe.

“Surely you would agree that the American people deserve to know whether a former president — and a current candidate for president — took an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator,” they wrote.

They also asked Trump to provide information about a $10 million lump sum that Trump put into his own campaign in late 2016, including any funding sources that he used to repay the “contribution or loan.”

The Post first reported on the letter from Raskin and Garcia on Tuesday morning. The Democrats on the Republican-majority panel do not have the authority to issue subpoenas.

Asked about the letter, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told CNBC in an email, “This is textbook Fake News.”

“The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed. None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact,” Cheung said.

“The media is consistently played for suckers by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors peddling hoaxes and shams,” he added.

The Post reported on Aug. 2 that federal investigators had received classified intelligence suggesting that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to boost Trump’s victorious 2016 presidential campaign with a $10 million donation.

The investigators, from a team assembled by former special counsel Robert Mueller, reportedly learned in 2019 that the state-run National Bank of Egypt had carried out a request to withdraw $9,998,000 by packing bundles of $100 bills into two large bags.

The Jan. 15, 2017 withdrawal request was executed the same day, just five days before Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Post’s investigation.

The discovery of that withdrawal appeared to bolster the claim that Sisi sought to give Trump money.

Trump had previously announced on Oct. 28, 2016, that he would make a $10 million contribution to his own campaign. But in order to persuade Trump to approve the transaction, his then-campaign finance chairman had structured it as a loan that could be repaid, the Post reported.

In early 2019, Mueller’s team reportedly handed the Egypt probe to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., helmed at the time by Jessie Liu, a Trump appointee.

Liu had suggested she was open to subpoenaing a set of Trump’s bank records, but later expressed hesitancy after conferring with Barr, the Post reported. Liu also privately signaled worry about exposing the DOJ to more accusations of interfering in a presidential election, since Trump by that time had announced his 2020 reelection campaign.

Liu in late 2019 was nominated to a role in the Treasury Department. Her successor, Timothy Shea, reportedly reacted negatively to the Egypt case.

He was replaced in May 2020 by Michael Sherwin, who decided to close the case for lack of evidence, according to the Post.

In Tuesday’s letter, Raskin and Garcia wrote, “We are certain you can see how significant troubling questions still haunt our country about the origins of your $10 million campaign contribution, the source of any repayment, and the credible allegations that it was all funded with cash provided by President El-Sisi through his grim intelligence services.”

They also wrote that the allegations stemming from the Post’s reporting “are especially alarming” in light of “several proven patterns of corrupt practices exhibited by both the Egyptian government and by you, of course, as a convicted felon, fraudster and corrupt politician.”

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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“In Florida, like so many other States that have already given their approval, personal amounts of marijuana will be legalized for adults with Amendment 3,” the former president wrote, adding, “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly. We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities.”

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Trump framed his position as one consistent with his “Make America Safe Again” agenda, writing that criminalizing marijuana would “waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them.”

He added, “no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl laced marijuana. We will make America SAFE again!”

The marijuana ballot measure, if passed, would “allow adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for non-medical personal consumption.”

The state Supreme Court ruled in April to allow the measure on the 2024 ballot.

The post came after Trump’s campaign had to clarify his stance on another ballot measure in Florida, one that would guarantee a constitutional right to abortion in the state.

Florida currently has a six-week abortion ban and on Thursday, Trump told NBC News that the limit is “too short.”

“It has to be more time,” he added.

His comments drew fire from the anti-abortion rights movement, with figures like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser saying in a statement, “I spoke with President Trump this evening. He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position.”

A day later, on Friday, Trump clarified his remarks, saying, “I’ll be voting no,” on the abortion rights ballot measure.

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The altercation came moments after Trump criticized major media outlets for what he said was unfavorable coverage and dismissed CNN as fawning for its interview Thursday with his Democratic rival Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.

The man made it over a bicycle rack ringing the media area, and began climbing the back side of a riser where television reporters and cameras were stationed, according to a video of the incident posted to social media by a reporter for CBS News. People near him tried to pull him off the riser and were quickly joined by police officers.

The crowd cheered as a pack of police led the man away, prompting Trump to declare, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?”

Moments later police handcuffed another man in the crowd and led him out of the arena, though it wasn’t clear if that detention was related to the initial altercation.

The incident happened amid heightened scrutiny of security at Trump rallies after a gunman fired at him, grazing his ear, during an outdoor rally in nearby Butler, Pennsylvania. Security at political events has been noticeably tighter since the shooting.

It was not clear what motivated the man or whether he was a Trump supporter or critic. Fierce criticism of the media is a standard part of Trump’s rally speeches, prompting his supporters to turn toward the press section and boo, often while using a middle finger to demonstrate their distaste for journalists.

Lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee asked the federal court in Manhattan to seize the case from the state court where it was brought and tried, arguing that the historic prosecution violated Trump’s constitutional rights and ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.

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Trump’s lawyers said moving the case to federal court following his May 30 conviction will give him an “unbiased forum, free from local hostilities” to address those issues. If the case is moved to federal court, Trump lawyers wrote, they will then seek to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed. If it remains in state court, with sentencing proceeding as scheduled, it could amount to election interference, they said.

“The ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election — and voters located far beyond Manhattan,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in a 64-page U.S. District Court court filing.

Trump was convicted in state court in Manhattan of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a payment to bury affair allegations that threatened to cloud his 2016 presidential run. Even if the case isn’t moved to federal court, the potential delay caused by litigation surrounding Trump’s effort could give him a critical reprieve as he navigates the aftermath of his criminal conviction and the homestretch of his presidential campaign.

Separately, the state court judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan, is weighing Trump’s requests to postpone sentencing until after Election Day, Nov. 5, and to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case in the wake of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.

The high court’s July 1 ruling reins in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors in pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump’s lawyers argue that in light of the ruling, jurors in the hush money case should not have heard such evidence as former White House staffers describing how the then-president reacted to news coverage of the deal to pay hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

Trump’s lawyers had previously invoked presidential immunity in a failed bid last year to get the hush money case moved from state court to federal court. A federal judge rejected that request, clearing the way for Trump’s historic trial in state court.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected Trump’s claim that allegations in the hush money indictment involved official duties, writing in July 2023, “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”

“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties,” Hellerstein added.

A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case.

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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“A nameless bureaucrat at Arlington whose job it is to preserve the dignity of the cemetery is doing the complete opposite in trying to make what was a very solemn and respectful event into something it was not,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, a retired Marine who was with Trump at the cemetery Monday.

Trump has long portrayed himself as a champion of service members and veterans — an image bolstered by participants in Monday’s ceremony. But he has also created a pattern of disparaging service members that has led even some former aides to question the authenticity of his support for the military.

The latest episode threatens to blunt his attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over a 2021 terrorist assault at the so-called Abbey Gate of the Kabul airport, which killed 13 American service members.

It was the third anniversary of the bombings, which occurred during the harried U.S. exit from Afghanistan, that took Trump to the Arlington burial ground, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, on Monday. He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to honor those who died in the bombings and then moved to Section 60, an area reserved for participants in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Trump was joined at both sites by family members of the men and women killed at Abbey Gate. The family members invited him to participate in the commemoration, and they wanted the moment to be documented, according to two people who were present.

“I gave my permission,” Kelly Barnett, the mother of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover, told NBC News. “I wanted the memories. I wanted to make sure that my family at home — I have a huge family — I wanted to make sure that they were involved with it, as well, and they could see it and feel it, have the experience that we had. And so I said, yeah, in no uncertain terms, I was OK with it.”

Trump posed for a photograph beside Hoover’s grave, smiling and giving a thumbs-up gesture in a shot that included the headstones of other service members who were not part of Monday’s ceremony.

A federal regulation admonishes that memorial services at Army cemeteries “will not include partisan political activities.”

There is no greater sacrifice than giving one’s life in defense of our country. It was my solemn privilege to stand alongside the family of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover at Arlington National Cemetery today as we paid tribute to his legacy and the 12 others who lost their lives… pic.twitter.com/tR6dhpMYsB

— Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox (@GovCox) August 26, 2024

NPR first reported Tuesday that two Trump campaign staffers had a confrontation with a cemetery official who tried to prevent them from filming.

“We can confirm there was an incident, and a report was filed,” the cemetery said in a statement.

Whatever happened, Barnett and another participant — who asked to remain anonymous without authorization to speak for the families — said they noticed nothing amiss.

“We didn’t even hear about it until the next day,” the second participant said, who did not believe Trump’s participation amounted to campaign activity.

“It wasn’t politicized,” this person said.

Trump posted video that included clips from Monday’s ceremony to his TikTok account. In the video, he blamed Biden and Harris for the deaths at the Kabul airport.

Trump, like most Republican presidential candidates in recent decades, has won the majority of voters who have served in the military, according to exit polls. But his edge was smaller in his defeat in 2020 — 54% to 44% — than when he won that part of the electorate 61% to 34% in taking the presidency in 2016.

His aides have publicly dismissed the report of a physical interaction at the cemetery and accused Democrats of ignoring the anniversary, which is the most poignant reminder of a withdrawal that was politically damaging to Biden.

“They’re trying to muddle the fact that there was only one commander in chief in Arlington on Aug. 26,” LaCivita said. He noted that Biden was on vacation and that Harris did not visit Arlington on the anniversary. Both of them issued statements. 

Neither Trump nor Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, served in uniform. Their running mates, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., did.

Harris’ campaign declined to comment on the report of an altercation at Arlington, but its communications director, Michael Tyler, addressed it in a CNN interview Wednesday.

“Frankly, I think this episode is pretty sad when it’s all said and done,” Tyler said. “Listen, this is what we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump and his team. Donald Trump is a person who wants to make everything all about Donald Trump. He’s also somebody who has a history of demeaning and degrading military service members, those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.”

A Trump adviser who spoke with NBC News pointed to a statement signed by five Gold Star family members and two Purple Heart recipients who were with Trump on Monday defending him amid the firestorm. They said in the statement that they gave approval for Trump’s videographer and photographer to capture those moments so they could “cherish these memories forever.”

“Everything involved in the day was at their invitation,” this person said. “It wasn’t a campaign event. It was an event done by the families of these people, and they invited the commander-in-chief who has consistently demonstrated strong and unwavering support for them and all service members and their families.”

This person said that Trump was “grateful” for the invitation and that he would show “how committed he is when he’s back in the White House to ensure that the people who manufactured that insane and disastrous withdrawal are held accountable for it.”

The Trump campaign’s handling of the episode after details leaked to the media raised some eyebrows among Republicans, particularly a statement in which communications director Steven Cheung said “an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump’s team during a very solemn ceremony.”

A Republican operative, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the statement “so unprofessional.” A Trump ally, meanwhile, said the “behavior” outlined at the cemetery was “really out of character” for the campaign.

For years, Trump has faced accusations of showing disrespect to veterans and service members.

Early this year, he mocked the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for being unable to raise his arms because of injuries he sustained as a prisoner of war. In 2015, he also said McCain was not a “war hero” because “he was captured.”

“I like people that weren’t captured,” he said at the time.

McCain, a veteran of the Vietnam War, gained national recognition for his time as a prisoner of war in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was tortured.

This cycle, Trump also questioned why Nikki Haley’s husband was not with her on the campaign trail during the Republican primaries. Maj. Michael Haley was serving overseas at the time.

Just this month, Trump described the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is a civilian honor, as “much better” than the Medal of Honor, a military honor, because recipients of the latter are often deceased or severely injured.

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said last year his former boss denigrated veterans and service members as “suckers” and “losers,” confirming remarks that were published in The Atlantic years earlier. Trump has vehemently and repeatedly denied making such comments.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat and Army veteran, pointed to Trump’s comments about the Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, adding that the episode at Arlington National Cemetery appeared to be a “continuation of something that I just find really problematic.”

“There is this attacking of those with military service and this increasing politicization and disrespect for those who have chosen to serve this country,” he said, adding that he still wanted to learn more details about what happened between Trump’s staff and the cemetery official.

At their convention last week, Democrats took Trump to task over military issues, emphasizing a theme of patriotism. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that Trump “does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military” and that he was the only president since World War II who has not “honored our veterans and their sacrifices.”

But for Republicans, the episode served to further shine a light on what they see as one of the Biden administration’s biggest failings in Afghanistan, a key piece of their message on global instability over the past four years.

“The veterans that I talk to feel disrespected and disappointed, certainly at their commander in chief, in the direction of the United States militarily,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Rob Mercuri, a veteran and congressional candidate in the 17th District, which is a swing district with a large veteran population. “The only thing I would say about President Trump is that his plan is to project strength. My view is that the Reagan Doctrine of peace through strength is really important to come back to.”

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Alex Seitz-Wald contributed.

The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

• Israeli woman freed from Hamas captivity recalls brutal conditions inside tunnels
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In paperwork filed ahead of oral arguments next month, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office said the current Republican nominee’s appeal is awash in “meritless legal arguments” and ignores volumes of trial evidence showing that he and his co-defendants engaged in “fraud and illegality on an immense scale.”

“On appeal, defendants tellingly ignore almost all their deceptions,” Assistant Solicitor General Daniel S. Magy wrote in a 168-page submission to the state’s mid-level appeals court known as the Appellate Division.

Trump, his company and top executives including his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. “created and used financial statements rife with blatant misrepresentations and omissions to maintain loans worth more than half a billion dollars and to generate over $360 million in ill-gotten profits,” Magy wrote.

The Appellate Division said Wednesday that it will hear the case on Sept. 26, about six weeks before Election Day and just after the start of early voting in some states. The court typically rules about a month after arguments, meaning a decision could come before the presidential race ends.

If upheld, the judgment threatens to dent Trump’s personal wealth, disrupt his Trump Organization and damage his identity as a savvy businessman. As of Wednesday, the Trump defendants owe more than $485 million. That includes interest that continues to accrue even after Trump posted a $175 million bond in April to halt collection of the sum and prevent the state from seizing his assets while he appeals.

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Trump is asking the Appellate Division to overturn Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied to banks, insurers and others about his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals. He and his lawyers argue the verdict was “erroneous” and “egregious.”

The Appellate Division could either uphold Engoron’s verdict, reduce or modify the penalty or overturn the decision entirely. If Trump is unsuccessful at the Appellate Division, he can ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to consider taking his case. If he wins, he won’t have to pay the state anything and will get back his bond money.

Trump and his lawyers contend the case should never have gone to trial, the statute of limitations barred some allegations, and the state shouldn’t be policing private business transactions. They also object to the legal mechanics of James’ lawsuit, arguing that the law she sued him under is a consumer-protection statute that’s normally used to rein in businesses that rip off customers.

Trump denies wrongdoing and he and his lawyers say no one was harmed. He has decried the verdict as “election interference” and “weaponization against a political opponent,” complaining he was being punished for “having built a perfect company, great cash, great buildings, great everything.” James and Engoron are Democrats.

In their response Wednesday, state lawyers said the statute of limitations was applied properly and that state law authorizes the state’s attorney general to take action against fraudulent or illegal business conduct, “regardless of whether it targets consumers, small businesses, large corporations, or other individuals or entities.”

Wednesday’s scheduling of oral arguments adds to a busy September for Trump, as he campaigns to retake the White House while navigating the aftermath of multiple courtroom losses.

Trump is scheduled to debate his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, on Sept. 10. On Sept. 16, the judge in Trump’s hush money criminal case is expected to rule on a defense request to overturn his felony conviction and dismiss the case on presidential immunity grounds. Two days later, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in the criminal case — though his lawyers have asked that it be postponed until after Election Day, Nov. 5.

Engoron found that Trump, his company and top executives schemed for years to puff up his financial statements to create an illusion that he and his properties were more valuable than they really were. Trump inflated his net worth on the financial statements by as much as $800 million to $2.2 billion a year, state lawyers said.

In addition to the hefty monetary penalty, the judge put strict limitations on the ability of Trump’s company to do business. Among other consequences, Engoron put the Trump Organization under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor for at least three years.

If upheld, Engoron’s ruling will force Trump to give up a sizable chunk of his fortune. The judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties, accounting for what he deemed “ill-gotten gains” derived from his inflated financial statements, including lower loan interest rates and profits from projects he wouldn’t have otherwise been able to finish.

With interest the total was $485.2 million as of Wednesday — including $20.6 million in interest that has accrued since the verdict. The sum will increase by nearly $112,000 per day until he pays, unless the verdict is overturned.

Trump maintains that he is worth several billion dollars and testified last year that he had about $400 million in cash, in addition to properties and other investments. James has said that if Trump is unable to pay, she will seek to seize some of his assets.

In a filing last month, Trump’s lawyers said that if Engoron’s decision is upheld, it would bestow James with “limitless power” to target anyone she desires, including her self-described political opponents.

“Our primary focus is not to get out the vote, it is to make sure they don’t cheat,” Trump said in remarks at a campaign event in Asheboro, N.C., a state that Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign views as competitive this year.

“We have all the votes we’ll need,” Trump said, indicating he’s not concerned about boosting voter turnout in his base. “You can see it…every house along the way has signs: Trump, Trump, Trump, Vance, Trump, Vance.”

“We are going to fight like hell to win this election,” he added. “They are going to cheat like hell to win the election because they have no bounds.”

When reached for comment, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt defended the remarks.

“As President Trump has always said, our focus is on ensuring this election is too big to rig and protecting the vote!” she said in an email.

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.

The former president, who has been indicted over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has been laying the foundation to undermine the 2024 results if he loses.

Trump has asserted, for example, that Google is rigging the election and has said that New York courts are interfering in the electoral process through his hush money trial and related gag order.

He has also falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was stolen.

“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024,” Trump said at a rally last weekend in Wilkes-Barre Township, Pennsylvania.

Trump has been asked numerous times if he will accept the 2024 election results even if he loses, and he has consistently qualified his response.

“If I do, and it’s free and fair, absolutely, I will accept the results,” he told CBS News on Monday.

Trump has previously downplayed the need to boost his vote count.

“My instruction — we don’t need the votes. I have so many votes,” he told Fox News last month.

At the same time, he has encouraged his supporters to do what it takes to vote for him.

“If you want to save America, get your friends, get your family and everyone you know and vote. Vote early, vote absentee, vote on election day. Do whatever you want, but you have to vote,” Trump said at a rally in Atlanta this month.

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

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Some wanted the Republican to go a baseball stadium in Tampa, near where he grew up and starred in Little League, for what they hoped would be a photogenic rally with his young family. Campaign manager Generra Peck supported a different idea, according to people familiar with the matter — one she had quietly been working on for weeks with Elon Musk, the then-new owner of the platform still known at the time as Twitter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal deliberations.

DeSantis opted for an audio-only conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces. Initially drawing interest and curiosity, the call was a disaster. The feed crashed due to technical glitches, creating an inauspicious opening for what would ultimately be DeSantis’ ill-fated campaign.

Peck, who was demoted three months into DeSantis’ candidacy, and Musk are now working together again, this time on a super political action committee, America PAC, dedicated to electing Donald Trump, who beat DeSantis on his way to winning this year’s Republican nomination.

Trump’s campaign is largely leaving paid canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts to outside groups such as America PAC, relying on new guidance from the Federal Election Commission that allows campaigns to coordinate with outside groups in ways that were previously not allowed. But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently. Indeed, DeSantis’ decision to have an outside group canvass for him was attributed as one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.

The small margins that an effective turnout program can achieve could be especially important in a tight presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, drawing more enthusiasm than when President Joe Biden was seeking reelection.

America PAC has a charge of identifying likely Trump supporters in key states through door-to-door canvassing and digital outreach. It is among a handful of organizations to which Trump’s team has ceded most of the organizational effort, including Turning Point Action and Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Its work — and Musk’s role — have drawn an unusual level of interest.

“America PAC is utilizing the data it collects to register voters and encourage them to vote,” lawyers for the group wrote in an Aug. 7 letter sent to a staffer for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose office was cited in an Aug. 4 CNBC story as investigating the group’s efforts. “Admittedly, not all our plans or strategies are public at this time, but any investigation into our efforts will prove premature and imprudent.”

Benson’s office, which released the letter, responded two days later by saying it announced a review “in response to concerns that potential Michigan voters were being misled by an America PAC website into believing they were registering to vote when they were, in fact, not.”

“Thank you for confirming that the website is offering voter registration and that your client plans on using the gathered information to actually register voters,” Benson’s office added in its letter.

Musk has denied reports that he would fund pro-Trump efforts this year to the tune of $45 million a month. But he has been vocal both in his support of Trump and his boosting of conservative voices on the platform he renamed from Twitter to X.

“The key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom,” Musk wrote in a July post. “Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom.”

A year after Trump repeatedly mocked DeSantis’ botched rollout, he appeared on the same platform this week to speak with Musk. But their call was also plagued by glitches and delayed for 40 minutes, followed by a long conversation in which Trump’s audio often sounded slurred.

“Based on that two-hour X mess, if you get Musk as a client, that’s good, I guess. But if you don’t, you can see how that’s also good,” said Mark Campbell, who managed the winning campaign of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., in 2021. “Because as far as Elon Musk’s foray into politics goes, he’s 0 for 2.”

A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment. Peck did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In mid-July, America PAC dumped the vendors it had hired for digital strategy, polling, canvassing and advertising. In addition to hiring other firms, it replaced those vendors with companies linked to Phil Cox, another former DeSantis campaign aide and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association who is a business partner of Peck’s in a firm called P2.

Peck is not the sole leader of the PAC. In addition to Peck and Cox, Dave Rexrode, another top aide on the Youngkin campaign, is also a senior adviser.

People familiar with the matter say Peck — and DeSantis — have cultivated close ties with Musk.

About a month before DeSantis launched his campaign on Twitter Spaces, Peck held a late-night Zoom meeting with Musk, who was overseas, as well as Musk’s friend and fellow tech billionaire David Sacks and pro-DeSantis super PAC chairman Adam Laxalt, about Musk’s interest in contributing to DeSantis’ looming presidential campaign.

After that meeting, Peck told members of DeSantis’ political team that she expected Musk to be the biggest player in the 20-year history of super PACs, groups that can take unlimited sums and advocate for a candidate as long as they do not coordinate with campaigns.

From that point on, Peck guarded Musk carefully, the people familiar with the operations said.

Where typically senior political operatives in contact with major donors hand off those relationships to a campaign’s finance director, Peck did not in Musk’s case, maintaining her role as the single DeSantis campaign conduit to Musk. “It was all her,” one person said.

Likewise, Peck typically did not involve senior advisers to Never Back Down, the super PAC that DeSantis had entrusted with his organizational efforts in early states, to participate in calls with Musk. Though there are rules that bar coordination between campaigns and super PACs, those can be accommodated in conference calls by asking PAC officials to drop off the call during strategy discussions.

Peck kept communications with Musk to herself, to the point that top aides were barred from discussing Musk’s interest in the campaign.

“Nobody was able to talk to engage with the Elon stuff,” the source said. “It was clear during and immediately after the rollout that Generra was the one talking to them, exclusively so.”

Others in DeSantis’ political orbit said there was no need for Musk to be in contact with the Florida governor’s campaign, that the billionaire defies the profile of even the biggest political donors. Those who say Musk wasn’t in touch with key staff could be voicing bitterness that they didn’t have more access to him, they say.

Ultimately, Musk is not listed in Federal Election Commission records as having donated either to DeSantis’ campaign or Never Back Down.

Peck previously worked as policy director for Republican Ed Gillespie’s losing bid for Virginia governor in 2017.

“If she’s also trying to develop Elon Musk, I’m not sure that’s that different than what a lot of political consultants do, which is put two different sides of their business together, the political and the corporate sides,” Campbell said.

Canvassing and voter outreach are some of the most visible parts of a campaign, even though some strategists say observers put too much importance on the so-called “ground game.” Campbell argued that both candidates — and not outsiders — would determine the fate of the race.

“Anything having to do with Musk is all collateral noise,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that Generra Peck previously worked as policy director for Ed Gillespie’s 2017 campaign for Virginia governor, not Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign for governor.

The branded Bible, listed in the disclosure as “The Greenwood Bible,” sells for $59.99 and includes a handwritten chorus to the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” by country singer Lee Greenwood, according to the branded Bible’s website. A limited edition copy that is said to bear Trump’s signature is also available on the website for $1,000.

Trump also has more than $1 million in cryptocurrency, the new documents show. His disclosure included details about a cryptocurrency wallet and “virtual ethereum key” holdings that he valued at $1 million to $5 million.

Trump’s public positions on crypto have shifted since he first took office, when he said the digital currency was a scam.

He has since embraced a hands-off approach from the government, with his campaign touting that he’s building a “crypto army.”

The shift came after lobbying from the industry — and signs that fostering the growth of crypto was popular among a segment of Trump’s base, particularly young men who spend time online.

“And I know a lot of very good people that are really into that world and into that market. They’re smart, they’re good people, and they think it’s going to be very beneficial,” Trump said recently on a livestream with streamer Adin Ross, adding that if the U.S. isn’t involved in crypto, China will be.

In his financial disclosure form last year, Trump estimated the value of Truth Social, his social media company, to hover between $5 million and $25 million. He valued the company, referred to as Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., at more than $50 million this year.

He had also reported two trademarks in China in the previous disclosure, a number that increased drastically to more than 100 by NBC News’ tally in his 2024 disclosure.

After they announce their candidacies, federal candidates and officeholders are required to file financial disclosures every year that typically provide general information about assets, investments and income.

Ginger Gibson and Christina Wilkie, CNBC contributed to this story

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Bulletproof glass of this kind is already available to sitting presidents and vice presidents. It is transported using military aircraft whenever the president travels, but Trump, a candidate and former president, does not have access to this military transportation support. Sources who asked not to be named in order to discuss sensitive security provisions said the ballistic glass will now be prepositioned around the country and moved in by agents who will be responsible for guarding the material.

Not every outdoor event will require ballistic glass, but in order to better protect Trump, it is likely to be used whenever there are issues at specific sites or needs for added security.

It is one of several security measures previously only used for officeholders but that is now being added to Trump’s protection after a failed assassination attempt, one of the officials said.

The official said the Secret Service is also increasing manpower and technology to mitigate threats around Trump during outdoor rallies, as well as more frequent threat analysis and prevention for all protective details, including counter-snipers and counter-surveillance.

The Secret Service faced intense scrutiny and criticism after a gunman fired multiple times at Trump during an outdoor rally on July 13 in Butler, Pa., wounding him and two rallygoers and killing one other.

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said after the shooting that she was bolstering the protective details of the candidates for president.

Trump has not held an outdoor campaign event since the attempted assassination. 

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The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, alleges that Ryan Wesley Routh “did intentionally attempt to kill Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump, a major Presidential candidate” when he was camped out near where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

It also added two other charges: possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer.

Routh had previously been charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump nominee who dismissed the criminal classified documents against the former president earlier this year.

The Justice Department said the a grand jury in Miami returned the indictment with the additional charges late Tuesday afternoon.

The indictment comes one day after Trump issued a statement accusing the Justice Department of “downplaying” the alleged assassination plot against him this month and suggesting state officials in Florida take over the case.

“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” Trump said in a statement Monday, alleging they have a conflict of interest “since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long.”

Federal prosecutors had indicated during Routh’s court appearance Monday that other charges were coming. Among the additional evidence they said they’d collected was a handwritten note from Routh addressed to “The World” that said, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.”

Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been ordered held without bail pending trial. He has not yet been arraigned.

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Violence targeting public officials endangers everything our country stands for, and the Department of Justice will use every available tool to hold Ryan Routh accountable.”

“This must stop,” Garland said.

Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., in July. The gunman was killed by Secret Service after opening fire on Trump, with a bullet hitting his right ear, at a campaign rally.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that deputies were contacted at roughly 9 p.m. ET Sunday and noted that security video had captured a person dressed in dark clothing with a dark cap and a backpack.

The campaign office in Ashburn, about 30 miles northwest of Washington, is being leased by the Trump campaign, and the state’s 10th District Republican Committee is also headquartered there, the sheriff’s office said.

“It is rare to have the office of any political campaign or party broken into,” Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said in a statement. “We are determined to identify the suspect, investigate why it happened, and determine what may have been taken as well as what may have been left behind.”

Reached for further comment, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said investigators would provide more details “as early as tomorrow” after they identify the person and that additional intelligence units were “there now investigating whether anything was taken or left and the motivation.”

A Trump campaign spokesperson and the campaign for Mike Clancy, the Republican nominee for the House seat in the state’s 10th Congressional District, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening.

The report of a possible burglary comes after Trump’s campaign said Saturday that an Iranian group hacked it in June, around the time Trump was selecting his running mate.

The FBI said Monday that it is investigating the alleged hack. A source familiar with the matter said the FBI bureau is also investigating attempted hacks of three Biden-Harris campaign staffers and former Trump adviser Roger Stone, which were first reported by The Washington Post.

Ken Dilanian contributed.

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Elon Musk‘s much-hyped interview of former President Donald Trump on the social media platform X was quickly derailed by technical glitches in the first minutes of the scheduled start time on Monday evening.

Social media users trying to log on to the event, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET, reported that they could not join X’s livestream platform.

Shortly after 8:20 p.m., Musk blamed a cyberattack for the freezing screens.

The glitch was reminiscent of X’s technical disaster in 2023 that botched Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch announcement.

On Sunday, Musk, the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO, said that he had planned a series of tests to ensure that X’s livestream capabilities could handle the Monday event without technical disturbances.

The interview was billed as a buzzy, news-making event to help the Trump campaign revive its supporters after a rattling three weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

“This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” Musk wrote in a Sunday post on X, teasing the event.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.