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Ryan Routh’s foreign ties draw wider attention

Ryan Routh demonstrates in Kyiv in 2022. Credit: Getty

September 16, 2024 - 9:15pm

There are many questions circulating about the second assassination attempt of Donald Trump in two months. Yet one that will particularly set conspiracy theorists abuzz is whether Ryan Wesley Routh, the alleged suspect in West Palm Beach, made meaningful contact with any foreign governments.

Social media is already lit up with people comparing 58-year-old Routh to Lee Harvey Oswald, who at one point defected to the Soviet Union, met with Soviet officials at the embassy in Mexico shortly before the shooting of President John F. Kennedy, and allegedly mingled with Cuban intelligence. These facts are highly credible, but are often used by less credible members of the tinfoil hat brigade in colourful ways.

Routh, though, seems to have travelled to Ukraine and Taiwan in recent months. He at least sought to make contact with their governments for the purpose of defending each country from invasions, according to posts on his X account.

Both the New York Times and Semafor quoted Routh in 2023, and the reporters in question are each now sharing more information about why. Writing in the Times, Thomas Gibbons-Neff said: “I was put in touch with Mr. Routh through an old colleague and friend from Kabul, Najim Rahim. Through the strange nexus of combatants as one war ended and another began, he had learned of Mr. Routh from a source of his in Iran, a former Afghan special operations soldier who was trying to get out of Iran and fight in Ukraine.” To be clear, Gibbons-Neff is saying his own source knew of Routh through a contact in Iran.

“Mr. Routh, who had spent some time in Ukraine trying to raise support for the war, was seeking recruits from among Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban,” the story continued. “And so the former Afghan soldier reckoned Mr. Routh could get him to the Ukrainian front.” What’s more, Routh reportedly “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”.

Former Semafor reporter Tanya Lukyanova, who now works for The Free Press, said Routh told her that “Ukraine is very often hard to work with. Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated.” Lukyanova claimed that Routh appeared back then as “just a harmless loon”.

Routh appears to have authored a self-published book in which he wrote to Iran: “You are free to assassinate Trump.” Just three weeks ago, Susan Crabtree — perhaps the best journalist on the Secret Service beat in America — reported: “Some U.S. national security officials are convinced that agencies devoted to protecting the security of presidents, former presidents, presidential candidates, and their families, as well as current and former State Department secretaries, have been compromised by Iranian intelligence assets,” according to “three knowledgeable sources”.

It’s likely that Routh is a mentally unstable person who took it upon himself to carry out wild plots that might help Ukraine or Taiwan, and then set out to assassinate Trump. His apparent connections to a hostile foreign power, however, warrant close scrutiny in the days ahead. It is worth remembering that after the failed attempt on Trump’s life in July, sources claimed “U.S. authorities” knew of an Iranian plot to kill the Republican nominee.

It’s not impossible that Iran saw in Routh, who was publicly and privately seeking to make contact with foreign governments, an easy vessel for its plan. It seems unlikely and may be entirely false. But it’s a question lawmakers will surely raise in the days ahead: was the US Government aware a convicted felon was flying to Ukraine and Taiwan, apparently making contact with people in Iran (per the Times), and publishing assassination fantasies on Amazon? Did he successfully make serious connect with any foreign governments?

Shawn VanDiver, founder of the AfghanEvac Coalition, posted on X to emphasise that Routh was known but dismissed as a crank. “When this guy’s idiotic plan made it to [AfghanEvac] our response was strong. My guidance was to stay the fuck away from him. That we weren’t going to ask Afghans to go fight this war. They’ve already done enough and have earned their spot in our country,” wrote VanDiver. 

I asked Alex Plitsas, a veteran working in the Afghan Evacuation and Ukraine spaces who had come across Routh’s tweets in the past, what he made of Trump’s would-be assassin. “There are people who float crazy and unrealistic ideas because they have no experience, but they’re trying to be helpful,” Plitsas told me. “Other times some of them have mental health issues. This gentleman had been a known entity online and everyone just kind of kept their distance. He didn’t seem dangerous and was not unique.”

Plitsas described Routh’s plan as “a cross between The Bourne Identity in his mind and The Emperor‘s New Clothes in reality, where he’s the only one who didn’t realise what he was proposing was batshit crazy and unachievable”.

It’s not hard to see why the community in which VanDiver and Plitsas work easily dismissed Routh. There are many questions yet to be answered about whether foreign governments discarded him quite as readily, even if those contacts ultimately amounted to nothing of great significance.


Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington D.C. Correspondent.

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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
2 months ago

Interesting. My first question is where did he get the money for all this travel and intrigue?

Essais Online
Essais Online
2 months ago

600 e-mails! Thanks for getting into his head, but of course do stay away from his world. This and your video present a well-rounded and current summary, with good caveats for conspiracy theorists. Thank you, and I hope that your hard work as a generalist today will pay premiums as you specialize in the future.

Simon S
Simon S
2 months ago

Well if this author seriously thinks anyone who suspects Oswald as being part of a conspiracy belongs to the tinfoil hat brigade I suppose it is little wonder that she is fingering Iran. Drivel.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  Simon S

If Oswald was a lone gunman the files wouldn’t have been sealed for another outrageous period of time.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Literally everyone involved is long dead! The only reason they would still be sealed is if there was stuff in there damaging to current agencies and institutions.

Josef Švejk
Josef Švejk
2 months ago

By those who get paid $200 an hour for the opinion, he is personality disordered. For the politically aligned he is either a Democrat or Republican stooge. For the tin foil hat brigade he works with foreign powers or agencies. The rest of us believe him to be bat sh*t crazy, a state not dissimilar from 15-20% of his American compatriots.

ELLIOTT W STEVENS
ELLIOTT W STEVENS
2 months ago
Reply to  Josef Švejk

I’d say you are about right on all your estimations…including the 15 – 20%.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago

If by “foreign ties” you mean “deep state pawn”, you are tight on the button. The bureaucrats and democrats who have been pushing lies and dog whistling – or explicitly- calling for violence against Trump knew their inflammatory lies would inspire the vulnerable and naive to act out their wicked calls.

ELLIOTT W STEVENS
ELLIOTT W STEVENS
2 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The far left DNC/Deep State LOVES stochastic terrorism when it is employed by them against their political and cultural enemies.

Steven Carr
Steven Carr
2 months ago

It was impossible for Routh to live the life he led without attracting the attention of people who work for various 3 letter agencies.

tammy guidry
tammy guidry
2 months ago

This site should really be called Herd and not UnHerd. There is no challenging or questioning of establishment narratives. This site is bait and switch effort to funnel people back into True Believers.

David Kingsworthy
David Kingsworthy
2 months ago

Yes Emily, there are important questions to be answered, however you ought to know by now that they will not be posed nor answered by our media. And if the questions are answered by those outside of MSM, the results will be unknown to all but those who find them in podcasts or publications like the FP.
I appreciate Emily’s energy and doggedness to pursue stories but am becoming disenchanted with her disinterest in challenging big media’s control of narratives.

Jae
Jae
2 months ago

Yes, I had very high hopes of Emily, she started off so well. She’s petered out, maybe wants a quiet life, who knows. Couldn’t blame her. But it’s a shame because she’s very talented..

Matthew Jones
Matthew Jones
2 months ago

The soviets wanted nothing to do with Oswald, because he was bonkers. I’m sure the Iranians would similarly have little time for Routh.