Conservatives are blaming the “Deep State” for the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Sunday by citing the shooter’s support for and travel to Ukraine as proof.
Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old man who was taken into custody for allegedly having attempted to assassinate Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, is at the center of conspiracy theories looking to tie the assassination attempt to the former president’s political enemies.
Specifically, Routh’s vocal support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022 is drawing suspicion from conservatives, who now say the attempt on Trump’s life was part of an effort to keep the war ongoing.
Trump long promised to end the war immediately upon taking office.
Trump fans say that Routh is a government patsy, given that he previously spole about his support for Ukraine in multiple news outlets, including Newsweek and the New York Times.
“Ryan Routh, the aspiring Trump assassin, was well connected to Ukraine’s military,” X user Jordan Schachtel wrote. “He had many contacts in Ukraine, per New York Times, which said he had spent several months in Ukraine (presumably to join the foreign legion and recruit for them) in 2022.”
Although Routh repeatedly bragged about ties to the Ukrainian military, a former International Legion official has since stated that the would-be shooter was “full of shit and hot air.”
“He’s been trying to get involved in recruitment and was really only interfering,” the official said. “He was called out a number of times by Legion people and told to stop his shenanigans, but that didn’t seem to stop him. He was mostly quite eccentric. I could smell a mile away that he was full of shit.”
A Ukrainian military source also said, according to the Telegraph, that the International Legion considered asking the Ukrainian government to ban Routh from the country.
“He was never in Ukraine in any official capacity, he simply decided that he was going to come here and save the day himself, by doing his own thing,” the source said. “I never met him in person but I was in contact with him multiple times to request to him that he stop his activities, most of which were bizarre and alarming.
Conservatives are also pointing to a pro-Ukraine video that happened to feature Routh for less than two seconds.
The video appears to be in support of the Azov Brigade, a far-right, all-volunteer infantry military unit in Ukraine that stirred controversy over some of its members ties to neo-Nazis.
In recent years, the national military absorbed the group. It now denies any ties to Nazism.
“Ryan Routh – In a Propaganda video for Ukraine while helping bring people in to war in Ukraine,” another user said. “Interesting!”
People quickly tied the video to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate Trump in July at a rally in Pennsylvania. Crook’s short appearance in a video produced by the investment firm BlackRock became “proof” of a Deep State connection.
“Here we go: Yet another Trump shooting suspect who appeared in a globalist commercial,” self-described independent journalist Kyle Becker wrote. “Ryan Routh was in a Pro-Ukraine propaganda video. Thomas Crooks was in a Blackrock commercial. These would-be Trump assass*ns were very good at following scripts.”
Despite Ukraine’s issues with Routh, conspiracy theorists say his support for the nation undoubtedly proves that his attempt on Trump’s life stemmed from either the CIA or NATO.
“Ryan Routh is a total NATO/CIA asset and was told where to be today to kill Trump,” conspiracy theorist Alex Jones said.
Routh’s follower list on X backed up the conspiracy theory, posters said.
“Turns out the attempted assassin Ryan Routh only follows 60 users, out of the first two people he followed, 1 of the 2 turns out to be affiliated with the CIA,” another said. “(If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…).”
Although conservatives painted Routh as a staunch liberal, his political views are more complex. Routh voted for Trump in 2016 and had endorsed Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in recent months. The attempted assassin also embraced conspiracy theories related to COVID-19.
Meanwhile, as conservatives frame Routh as a Deep State asset, liberal conspiracy theorists are busy suggesting that the assassination attempt on Sunday was staged by Trump himself.
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