A New York Times reporter on Tuesday detailed his prior encounter with suspected gunman, Ryan Wesley Routh, who allegedly intended to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Sunday at the Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In an appearance on “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” NYT reporter Thomas Gibbons recounted how he first met Routh through a network of international connections that began during his reporting days in Kabul. A colleague connected him with Routh via an Afghan special operations soldier who was seeking refuge from Iran’s challenging environment.
“An Afghan colleague who we worked together in Kabul, Majim Rahim, and a friend of his was in Iran. He was a former Afghan special operations soldier trying to get anywhere besides Iran or Afghanistan or Pakistan and he was put in touch with Mr. Routh who promised that he could get him to Ukraine to fight and that Afghan soldier started a WhatsApp group and sooner or later there were hundreds of Afghans talking to Mr. Routh and that’s when I got ahold of him,” Gibbons told Jake Tapper.
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The suspect’s alleged assassination plot to kill Trump came as a surprise to Gibbons. Reflecting on the news, Gibbons expressed a mix of emotions.
“I had to rack my brain for a second and then yeah, kind of all clicked,” Gibbons explained. “I mean, it was sad here and it was surprising to an extent but kind of also made a lot of sense. He was, you know, Mr. Routh was kind of in a reality that I can kind of see and it made a little bit of sense but it was clear that he was on a different plane.”
Gibbons used his prior insights into Routh’s character and speculated on the motivations driving the suspect to attempt the assassination on Trump. Known to have a turbulent past, Routh appeared to have sought a new identity through his interactions and commitments in Ukraine, particularly with Afghan refugees.
“Like many of the volunteers, not all of those who went to Ukraine in the early months, it was clear that he was trying to reinvent himself. And I think, you know, you look at his criminal history and his track record of being listless and a little lawless, well, definitely more than a little, but yeah, he wanted to reinvent himself,” Gibbons said. (RELATED: FBI Tipped Off In 2019 About Suspected Trump Gunman Ryan Wesley Routh’s Firearm Possession, Agency Says)
“And I think what happened in Ukraine and I think especially going with Afghan refugees is that he, you know, kind of had this greater purpose or something that, you know, that he had never had before.”
Gibbons detailed in an article published Sunday that Routh reportedly spoke about bribing corrupt officials, falsifying passports and doing whatever was necessary to transport his Afghan group to Ukraine. Despite this, the reporter added that Routh lacked a feasible plan to achieve his objectives and at one point discussed organizing a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland for Afghan refugees eager to join the fight.
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