The Department of Justice drops a bombshell revealing that Trump’s would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, tried to purchase military weapons from Ukraine-including a rocket launcher-in a plot to kill Trump.
He suggested that US weapons get lost ‘all the time on the battlefield’ and no one would miss them, an interesting comment by itself.
The Ukrainian government was aware of the assassination plan.
The Department of Justice’s motion
The DOJ’s stunning motion comes more than a year after the Defense Department’s inspector general reported in January 2024 that the Pentagon failed to properly track more than $1 billion in weaponry sent to Ukraine—including stinger missiles, which were popularized when the U.S. gave them to the Afghan mujahideen for its fight against Russia in the 1980s.
According to the IG report, the Pentagon failed to track roughly $1 billion out of the $1.7 billion in “enhanced end-use monitoring,” or EEUM, weapons sent to Ukraine. EEUM weapons are those that have a high risk for being diverted for other uses, and the Defense Department is supposed to take extra steps to make sure they reach their intended destination.
Weapons designated as EEUM include tomahawk missiles, stinger missiles, night-vision devices, javelins and a variety of other missiles and bombs.
The DOJ motion also follows reports that Routh was communicating with British-trained Afghan commandos who were abandoned there after Kabul fell in 2021, and who are now living in Iran.
Also on Monday, Routh’s attorneys argued that the DOJ’s firearms charges against him should be dismissed on Second Amendment grounds, and that the DOJ should be barred from using a witness against Routh because the FBI manipulated that witness. The DOJ countered by asking Judge Aileen Cannon to prohibit Routh from mounting bizarre legal defenses, such as that he was morally justified in plotting to assassinate Trump.
h/t External-Noise-4832