Former Attorney General William Barr says he is “dumbfounded” that the Justice Department released a chilling letter penned by would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh on Monday, calling the decision “rash” and serving no purpose “other than to risk inciting further violence.”
Routh is the suspect in former President Donald Trump’s second foiled assassination attempt. The DOJ obtained the letter from a witness who says they received it inside a box delivered to them by Routh several months prior to the assassination attempt.
The box contained several handwritten letters as well as ammunition, among other things. One of the letters, addressed “Dear World,” admitted to an assassination attempt on Trump. He also offered money to anyone willing to finish the job.
“I was dumbfounded that the DOJ made public this morning the contents of the letter that, Ryan Routh, left with an acquaintance prior to the attempted assassination of former President Trump,” Barr said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“The letter calls on people to ‘finish the job’ of killing President Trump, attempts to rouse people in incendiary terms to do so, and offers $150,000 to anyone who succeeds. There was no apparent justification for releasing this information at this stage,” he continued.
Barr, who served during both the Trump and George H. W. Bush administrations, says that “DOJ had more than enough evidence to have Routh detained pending trial, without publicizing these details.”
“Even if DOJ thought it important to provide the letter to the court, it could have redacted inflammatory material or arranged to have the letter submitted under seal. It was rash to put out this letter in the midst of an election during which two attempts on the life of President Trump had been made,” Barr said.
“It served no purpose other than to risk inciting further violence,” he added.
The department’s detention memo revealed that Routh traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug. 14, a month before the Sept. 15 golf course incident. One of Routh’s cell phones pinged cell towers near Trump’s golf course and his Mar-a-Lago residence “on multiple days and times” from Aug. 18 to Sept. 15, the detention memo alleged.
Investigators say they also found a book Routh had authored in 2023, titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, WWIII and the End of Humanity.”
The detention memo also provided a fresh detail on the witness who saw Routh flee the sniper’s nest. The witness made eye contact with the suspect before Routh jumped into a Nissan Xterra and sped away. The witness is credited with photographing the vehicle and reporting it to law enforcement.
Routh will likely face additional charges in the coming days, which could include aggravated assault for allegedly pointing the rifle at a Secret Service agent and making threats against a former president, State Attorney Dave Aronberg previously told Fox News Digital.
Anyone thinking this wasn’t done intentionally by the DOJ is a friggin’ idiot!
I disagree I do believe it should be released anything like this should be released to the public. Simply American needs to know a government’s been hiding things for way too long so for to make that comment that’s on him, but it’s important that American people are kept informed about what’s going on in this world or in this country, I think it’s important. We’ve been hiding too much for a long, long, long time.
The assholes in the Biden administration are just stoking the flames of the idiot on the left. The AG is just pissed he didn’t become a Supreme Court Justice. Thank God he didn’t and hopefully never will.
If Trump is killed, the people who allowed this information to be released need to be charged with, “Aiding and abetting: a legal doctrine that holds someone criminally liable for helping or encouraging another person to commit a crime.'”
We shouldn’t be surprised. The evil democrats in office have been pushing violence ever since Trump became president. I hope they are held accountable when this administration is done. There will be no running and hiding. I hope some committee is investigating and gathering information so these evil doers are all brought before their peers and honest judges and put where they belong. In prison.
Deep State Bill Barr wants to distance himself from the DOJ inner Gestapo organization HE helped create and served it faithfully. Corrupt con man nothing more.