The man detained by police for the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and initially charged with firearm violations fits the profile of tools of the intelligence agencies. His limited psychological stability would have made him useful.
How could Ryan Routh, caught hiding in the bushes at one of Trump’s golf courses with a semi-automatic rifle and other equipment, not have been on the radar of intelligence agencies, especially following his 2023 presence in a New York Times article on Americans and others volunteering to fight in Ukraine and to recruit others, including a large number of fighters from Afghanistan. One of the authors of that article, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, now recounts his experience speaking with Routh: “By the time I got off the phone with Mr. Routh some minutes later, it was clear he was in way over his head. He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it took to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight.”
“I shook my head,” Gibbons-Neff continues. “It sounded ridiculous, but the tone in Mr. Routh’s voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine’s war effort, no matter what.”
Indeed the plan was ridiculous, but Routh’s emotion-driven zealotry is the sort of state of mind intended by the Anglo-American-directed NAFO operation to support conditions for assassinations against opponents of a nuclear showdown with Russia.
Would lunatics, convinced that their enemy is evil incarnate, shy away from acts of terrorism in order to achieve their aims?
