Bernard Condon reported the most comprehensive look yet at the warning signs the federal government had about the man accused in an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, including from a woman who warned multiple agencies that Ryan Wesley Routh was a “ticking time bomb.”
Condon identified four reports to the U.S. government that, while not direct threats to Trump, raised suspicions about Routh in recent years. In addition to the “time bomb” complaint to Customs and Border Protection officials, they included a tip to the FBI in 2019 about Routh possessing a firearm after a felony conviction, an online report by an aid worker to the State Department last year questioning Routh’s tactics in recruiting foreign fighters for Ukraine, and Routh’s own interview with CBP those efforts, prompting a referral to Homeland Security.
Condon’s reporting stood out because he got the details behind the complaints by interviewing the people who made them, including a crisis nurse who was in Ukraine’s capital in the early days of the war and met Routh when he was there to recruit foreign soldiers to fight the Russians. Significantly, Condon sought to track down how these agencies responded to the tips, finding they either did not respond to AP’s queries, had no record of receiving a report, or questioned if the report warranted investigation.
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