We know that the FBI had Ryan Routh, the man accused of wanting to assassinate former President Donald Trump, on its radar in 2019.
Just the News learned U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) officials flagged Routh when he returned from Ukraine in 2023.
The June 2023 encounter with Routh at the Honolulu airport is confirmed in U.S. border entry records reviewed by Just the News and is latest tale of missed law enforcement opportunities dating 2019 to stop or further investigation the alleged would-be assassin.The records show that CBP officials knew that Routh had traveled to Warsaw, Poland, near the Ukraine border, and to Istanbul, Turkey, in 2022 and 2023 and had admitted in his interview that he had been recruiting as many as 100 foreign fighters from Taiwan, Afghanistan and Moldova to join Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.Routh even gave U.S. agents who interviewed him a business card that portrayed him as the director of a group called the “International Volunteer Center” that also claimed to have contact in Syria, Pakistan and Israel. He also described who had underwritten his efforts to recruit foreigners to assist Kyiv.“Subject is a USC who had traveled to Kiev, Ukraine for 3 months to help recruit Soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova, and Taiwan, to fight in the Ukrainian war against Russia,” the CBP interview notes of Routh state.“Subject stated that he does not get paid for his recruiting efforts and all his work for the Ukrainian government is strictly volunteer work Subject provided his recruiting business card (cards have been uploaded into the event) which list his recruiting partners that he speaks with to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Romanian, Pakistan, Syria, and Israel,” the note added. “Subject stated that he obtains money from his wife to help fund his trips to Ukraine.”
DHS officials sent the case to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
HSI refused the case.
In 2022, Chelsea Walsh, a nurse in Ukraine who met Routh in the country, alerted USCBP about him:
Walsh told the officer during the interview, which took place after she returned to the U.S., that Routh was among the most dangerous Americans she met during her month-and-a-half-long stint in Ukraine.She showed the officer a notebook listing more than a dozen names of Americans and others whose actions had alarmed her, she recounted. Under the heading “Overall Predatory Behavior (or antisocial traits)” were four names. Routh’s was at the top.When the officer noted that there were a lot of names, she replied, “‘Of all the people on there, Ryan Routh should be number one,’” Walsh told The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed her notebook.
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