A man who authorities say staked out Donald Trump for 12 hours on his golf course in Florida and wrote of his desire to kill him was indicted Tuesday on charges that he attempted to assassinate a major presidential candidate.
Ryan Wesley Routh had been initially charged with two federal firearms offenses. The upgraded charges reflect the Justice Department’s assessment that he methodically plotted to kill the Republican nominee, aiming a rifle through the shrubbery surrounding Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course on an afternoon Trump was playing on it. Routh left behind a note in which he described his intention.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who in July dismissed a separate criminal case charging Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The indictment had been foreshadowed during a court hearing Monday in which prosecutors successfully argued for the 58-year-old Routh to remain behind bars as a flight …