Staff Reports
In a bizarre turn of events that seems straight out of a Hollywood thriller, the FBI has confirmed that they received a warning about a potential assassin stalking former President Donald Trump back in 2019. One would think that a tip about a felon with a firearm would have received a tad more urgency from the Bureau, but apparently, not all threats to Trump warrant a five-alarm response. This incident raises serious questions about whether the FBI was too busy chasing down ‘white supremacist’ ghosts to pay attention to real criminal activity.
The alleged would-be assassin, identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, has a criminal resume that could make any aspiring felon proud. He not only managed to get himself convicted for having a weapon of mass death and destruction in North Carolina back in 2002, but he also racked up a nice collection of charges for possession of stolen goods in 2010. Evidently, Routh believed that playing fast and loose with firearms while sporting a felony record was a clever idea. But, who could blame him? After all, it’s always sunny in Hawaii where he moved in 2018, and getting arrested there must feel like a vacation compared to his previous stateside experiences.
@SecretService @FBI @DHSgov @JusticeOIG
Failure after failure after failure.
No one gets fired!
FBI tipped off in 2019 that Trump's alleged would-be assassin had firearm as a felon https://t.co/lnEa1oKeay via @JustTheNews
— Stewart Kahn (@StewartKahn) September 17, 2024
FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Veltri confirmed that the Bureau had indeed received a tip regarding Routh, but in a plot twist worthy of a second-rate thriller, the informant didn’t commit to their allegations during a follow-up interview. This conveniently leads to the question: if the FBI can’t nail down solid intelligence that warrants a swift response, are they conclusively wasting taxpayer dollars on pointless investigations? If only they had the same gusto to investigate actual threats as they do with political enemies, perhaps the country would feel a bit safer.
Despite the lack of reliable verification from the tipster, the Bureau did the bare minimum by passing the information to local law enforcement in Honolulu. One can only imagine what the local police must have thought when they received this enlightening piece of advice. Was it a gentle nudge or just a way for the FBI to cover its own tracks by saying, “Hey, we did something.”
Ultimately, the story doesn’t end with the FBI’s “report” but raises significant concerns about the agency’s priorities. While it seems more preoccupied with fishing for threats in the vast ocean of conspiracy theories, real-life dangers like Routh’s antics slip through the cracks. The FBI might want to reconsider its approach to safeguarding former presidents, or at least reconsider what constitutes an immediate threat to national security versus hunting down political dissidents. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could get their priorities aligned the way everyday Americans expect from their public servants? After all, a simple warning might just save lives—if only someone was listening.
