Trump golf course gunman shows where dangerous political rhetoric leads
Slowly we are getting a better picture of the events at Donald Trump’s golf club in Palm Beach. But many questions remain unanswered.
There are unknowns about the investigation, unknowns about how all this impacts a US election that’s less than 50 days away and unknowns about where the dangerous rhetoric leads.
On the investigation – we know now that it involves FBI agents working in multiple locations from Palm Beach to Hawaii and North Carolina, and with forensic analysis of the suspect’s electronic devices at the FBI offices in Quantico, Virginia.
It’s a multi-agency operation, led by the FBI, but with input from the local sheriff’s office, the state attorney’s office and the US Secret Service.
Their work is in the very initial stages, we were told. The firearms charges against Ryan Routh are likely to be followed by further charges soon.
It’s been revealed that he didn’t fire any shots himself when he was engaged by a Secret Service agent who was a hole ahead of Donald Trump on the course.
Despite this, it’s likely he will still be charged with attempted assassination.
His GoPro camera, two bags, and his weapon are all being forensically examined, as is his phone.
Data from that phone allowed investigators to conclude that he had been in the golf course area for 12 hours before the agent spotted him.
The Secret Service revealed that Mr Trump’s Sunday round of golf was an “off the record movement”. It was not part of his planned schedule.
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Moment Ryan Routh is arrested
Lone gunman or part of conspiracy?
This prompts the question of how Routh knew he would be there? Was it a punt by the alleged assassin?
Was he acting alone or part of a wider conspiracy? This question was raised by the sheriff: “If he’s the lone gunman, President Trump is that much safer because we have him,” he said. “But if he’s part of a conspiracy, then this whole thing really takes on a very ominous tone.”
Interviews with family in North Carolina may help investigators answer this key question as will analysis of his various communications devices – both active and dormant ones.
His previous convictions and his obsessive interest in the Ukraine War and China-Taiwan tensions hint at a complex character profile.
Law enforcement officials outside the Trump International Golf Club. Pic: AP
His social media footprint is broad and suggests he voted for Trump in 2016 but then his politics shifted to the left.
He certainly seems much more politically driven than the young man who shot at Mr Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.
That shooting, in which a bullet brushed his ear, has been likened to an American school shooting in its modus operandi, with investigators unable to find any particular ideology motivating the gunman.
Overstretched and under-resourced
It was clear that officials wanted to press home some points in their news conference.
First – they believe their agents did a good job on Sunday. With the funding and remit they have, the operation was described by them as “textbook”.
Second – the Secret Service director said he needed more funding. He pressed Congress to understand the huge task his agents have in a threat environment he described as “hyper dynamic”. That phrase jumped out at me.
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Secret Service ‘needs more help’
Also striking was the praise the Secret Service director heaped on Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, a man so often vilified by Donald Trump and his surrogates.
On that point, it’s notable that the investigation is being led by the FBI, an agency Mr Trump has so often said is part of the deep state. Yet he has expressed confidence and gratitude in all the agencies after Sunday.
Read more:
What we know about Ryan Routh
Biden says Secret Service needs more help
Question of how second assassination attempt may affect election is urgent
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Trump describes gunman incident
It was striking there was not more on whether he was acting alone or not. My sense is that they think he was. But they still need to comb his background to be sure.
It was interesting that they said he tried to “recruit Afghan soldiers to fight for Ukraine”.
One line of inquiry is likely to focus on the extent to which his desire to see Ukraine win its war aligns with a belief that Donald Trump would capitulate to Russia over Ukraine.
They will want to examine any possibility that he recruited accomplices to help in eliminating Mr Trump as part of his pro-Ukraine fight.
Another big unknown is the politics; the extent to which this incident fuels Mr Trump’s support.
The last assassination attempt propelled him into his party convention with a boost in the polls. It was only upended by the replacement of his opponent Joe Biden with Kamala Harris.
My sense here is that it will not have a huge impact this time. But we’ll see.
Close to a dangerous tipping point
The singular biggest challenge now is keeping the former president and his opponent, the vice-president, safe.
Mr Trump’s language for many years has been deeply divisive.
Just this past week, baseless claims about pet-eating Haitian migrants in Springfield have led to violent threats, far-right marches and bomb scares in the small Ohio town.
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Now Mr Trump is blaming the Democrats – and their assertion he is a threat to democracy – for the attacks against him.
On social media he wrote: “Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”
The Democrats see their “threat to democracy” warning as an accurate and justified political attack against a candidate who incited the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 and who refused to concede the 2020 election.
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, sees it differently.
“If you tell the American people that this person is the end of democracy… some crazy person is going to take matters into their own hands,” he said on Monday night.
He continued: “You know the big difference between conservatives and liberals? No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in last couple of months. And two people have tried to kill Donald Trump last couple months. That’s pretty strong evidence the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and cut this crap out.”
It feels like we are close to a dangerous tipping point. These are tense times in America.
A trove of newly released Epstein files include emails that appear to involve Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, while another suggests Donald Trump travelled on the billionaire’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported”.
The US Department of Justice released at least 11,000 more files on Tuesday.
It went on to claim that some of them “contain untrue and sensationalist claims” about President Trump.
Here are some of the latest news lines from this release of Epstein files. Being named in these papers does not suggest wrongdoing.
Who is ‘The Invisible Man’?
Among the documents released is an email sent to Ghislaine Maxwell that speaks about “the girls” being “completely shattered” at a Royal Family summer camp at Balmoral.
It is dated 16 August 2001 and sent by a person referred to as “The Invisible Man”, who signed off the message as “A” – and is believed to be Andrew.
Sky News has come to that conclusion from reviewing the email address used, which is assigned to the Duke of York in Epstein’s contacts book and the chain of correspondence.
In the correspondence, “The Invisible Man” asks Maxwell: “How’s LA? Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied any allegations against him.
The Peru trip
Another email appears to show Maxwell arranging “two-legged sight seeing” for “The Invisible Man” during a trip to Peru.
She appears to forward to “The Invisible Man” part of a conversation between herself and another person.
The email says: “I just gave Andrew your telephone no. He is interested in seeing the Nazca lines. He can ride but it is not his favorite sport ie pass on the horses.”
“Some sight seeing some 2 legged sight seeing (read intelligent pretty fun and from good families) and he will be very happy. I know I can rely on you to show him a wonderful time and will only introduce him to friends that you can trust,” Maxwell said.
The context of the email is unclear and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing.
Trump on Epstein’s jet?
The latest bunch of files also includes an email from an unidentified prosecutor dated 7 January, 2020, in which President Trump is mentioned.
The email accuses him of travelling on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported”.
It adds that President Trump “is listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including at least four flights on which Maxwell was also present”.
The email’s sender and receiver have been redacted. However, at the bottom of the email it says assistant US attorney, Southern District of New York. The name has also been redacted.
President Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to his relationship with Epstein, and being on any of Epstein’s flights does not indicate any wrongdoing.
Read more:
Trump defends ‘big boy’ Clinton after Epstein files release
Why Andrew photo in Epstein files is awkward for Royal Family
Limousine driver report about Trump
One of the documents in the release shows a report made to the FBI that was recorded on 27 October 2020.
It includes an unverified claim by a limousine driver that he overheard the US president discussing “abusing some girl” in 1995.
The driver also mentions Trump said “Jeffrey” while on the phone during a journey to Dallas Fort Worth Airport in Texas.
A significant part of the statement, along with the driver’s identity, has been redacted.
The US justice department has said that some of the documents in the latest Epstein files release “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election”.
“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” it said.
Postcard mentions ‘our president’
Also among the documents is a postcard that claims to have been sent by Jeffrey Epstein, but has been refuted by the justice department.
In it, the sender tells the recipient: “Our president also shares our love of young, nubile girls.”
It’s not clear who “our president” refers to and the context of the postcard is also unclear.
The US justice department initially said it was “looking into the validity” of the postcard but later said on X that the “FBI has confirmed” the postcard is “FAKE”.
It cited reasons including a claim that the writing does not appear to match Epstein’s and another that the letter was postmarked three days after his death.
Row over unreleased documents
It is believed that many files relating to Epstein are yet to be made public.
There has been anger at the justice department’s slow release of the files, with politicians threatening to launch legal action against Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The deadline for the release of all the documents has passed.
“The DOJ needs to quit protecting the rich, powerful, and politically connected,” Republican congressman Thomas Massie said.
A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein has spoken of the moment she met Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on the disgraced financier’s private island.
Lisa Phillips says that revealing the true extent of Epstein’s abuses is important for the protection of future generations.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied any allegations against him.
Speaking to US correspondent James Matthews on the day a new tranche of documents was released, she said she believes the “really important stuff” wasn’t released.
She recalled meeting Epstein in 2000 when she was working as a fashion model.
Ms Phillips said she was working on an island near Saint Thomas in the Caribbean and went over to Epstein’s island for a day, and met Epstein himself at dinner that evening.
“It took a few hours of him speaking to me one-on-one at the table, basically asking me a lot of questions about my life and my relationship with my family and my ambitions.”
She said Epstein was “very big” on her goals and became excited when he heard she had lived in Oxford, England, as a child.
“He asked me if I wanted to meet a prince, and I said yes.”
Epstein files latest: New batch of documents released
Ms Phillips explained that a man walked up and was introduced to her, and that he spoke to some people there and then said goodbye.
“It was very brief,” she said, adding that only years later did she realise that this was the former prince, Andrew.
She was asked about an email in the recently released files that appears to show Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor asking Ghislaine Maxwell about “inappropriate friends”.
“That is a very revealing email, isn’t it?” Ms Phillips said. “It’s very creepy, disturbing, and I mean, that’s why she’s in jail, right?”
The context of the email is unclear, and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has previously denied any allegations against him and Sky News has contacted Andrew’s representatives for comment on the latest release.
Asked about the impact being in Epstein’s orbit has had on her life, Ms Phillips said: “It hasn’t felt good to know that so much of my past that I worked hard for was really just smoke and mirrors and part of a bigger web.”
On the delays in releasing the files, she claimed “the really important stuff wasn’t released”.
She also spoke about her and other survivors’ ongoing fight for justice.
“We’re still doing our research, and we will still be bringing whatever we find to the proper authorities. And we’re not going to give up.”
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse are already looking beyond the release of the files in their pursuit of justice. It would seem sensible.
For the second time, a tranche of images and documents was released by the US Department of Justice and, for the second time, it didn’t detail the facts and failures which allowed Epstein to thrive.
If those key elements were in there, they were redacted.
The release of the files had been anticipated as a moment to unveil the whole story, to identify its characters and their crimes.
But this is a book with pages missing and piecing together the broader network that enabled sex-trafficking on an industrial scale won’t be easy.
It remains the fierce ambition for survivors, aware that Epstein was no one-man operation.
They know because they were there.
“I think the really important stuff wasn’t released,” Lisa Phillips told me.
Jeffrey Epstein with Ghislaine Maxwell. Pic: U.S. Department of Justice via AP
A survivor of Epstein’s abuse, she said women who suffered at his hands had been sharing information and would have something to report in the New Year.
“We’re still fighting, we’re still doing our research and we will still bring whatever we find to the proper authorities. This is really important to us, we’re all mothers now and have kids the same age as we were, so this fight is to the heart.”
They have seen their story wrapped in politics, in all its management and manipulation.
The resistance to publish, the timing of release, the redactions – they are matters beyond their control that could scarcely matter more.
Read more:
Epstein survivor describes ‘blindness’ around financier
Trump defends ‘big boy’ Clinton after Epstein files release
Why Andrew photo in Epstein files is awkward for Royal Family
We have seen thousands of files released but they come without context or explanation.
While they each say something about Epstein, his crimes and depravity, they don’t join the dots to the broader conspiracy. No one is better placed to do that than its victims.
This news story is their story. Ultimately, it may be for them to tell because we’re hearing it from no one else.
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