#Trump International Golf Club

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On Thursday, after teasing a massive announcement the day before, former President Donald Trump unveiled a series of $99 "trading card" nonfungible tokens, or NFTs — images of himself backed by cryptocurrency technology.

The announcement was widely mocked — however, one slightly less discussed detail is the nature of the company making the cards.

It isn't Trump's campaign, nor is it the Trump Organization. Rather, it is a mysterious entity known as CIC Ventures, which, according to Ken Bensington of The New York Times, has a lot of overlap with Trump.

"The company that licensed Trump's image and likeness for the $99 NFT trading cards appears to be one founded in 2021 by former Trump advisor Nick Luna and current Trump lawyer John Marion," wrote Bensington on Twitter. "Its mailing address is the same as the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach."

"Little is known about CIC, but a little digging shows that a manila folder seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI in August was marked 'Serio Contract' and contained a contract with CIC Ventures and Gold Ventures, per a federal court filing," Bensington continued.

Even some Trump supporters grumbled about the NFT announcement, complaining that the cards on offer were "worthless" and a "scam."

This comes as Trump has suffered setbacks with his 2024 campaign launch, with some polls indicating he is losing the lead among the Republican base to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — which Trump took to his Truth Social platform to rail against this week.

[makingdonalddrumpfagain]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Reuters, via The Guardian:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is safe following gunshots in his vicinity, his campaign said in a statement on Sunday. It said no further details were available. Reuters could not immediately determine where Trump was located when the campaign issued the statement. Politico national correspondent Meridith McGraw reported that the gunshots in question were fired at Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the former president and Republican nominee in November’s election was golfing on Sunday. Meanwhile, citing sources, the New York Post added that two people exchanging gunfire meant specifically for each other engaged in a shootout. The shooters were not targeting Trump, the sources said, according to the outlet.

Gunshots were fired outside the Florida Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, FL. Donald Trump was NOT the target of the gunshots, as the shooters were shooting each other.

See Also:

NBC News: Trump campaign says former president is safe following possible gunshots in his vicinity

[robertreich]

10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency

Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.

Let me jog your memory. Here are 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency — in no particular order.

#1. Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.

#2. Murder went way up under Trump. He presided over the largest ever single-year increase in homicides in 2020. A number of factors might have contributed to that, but a big one is…

#3. Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he “did nothing” to restrict guns as president in spite of…

#4. Under Trump, America suffered more than 1,700 mass shootings.

#5. Trump said there were "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

I’m halfway to ten. If you think I’m missing something big, leave it in the comments.

#6. Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the Jan 6 Capitol attack.

#7. Trump’s not wrong when he says…

TRUMP: I got rid of Roe v. Wade.

It is entirely because of Trump’s judicial appointments that 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans.

#8. One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault by multiple women.

#9. Trump’s White House interfered in the FBI’s investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.

And now: #10. Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. The criminally false business filings he got convicted for in New York? All of them were committed while he was president.

I’m sorry, did I say the 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency? I meant 15.

#11. Trump’s failed pandemic response is estimated to have led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. By the time Trump left office, roughly 3,000 Americans were dying of covid every day. That’s a 9/11-scale mass casualty event every single day. How did Trump screw up so badly?

#12. Trump’s White House discarded the pandemic response playbook that had been assembled by the Obama administration.

#13. Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team.

#14. Trump repeatedly lied about the danger of covid, saying it was no worse than the flu or that it would go away on its own.

But behind closed doors, Trump admitted he knew covid was deadly.

#15. Trump promoted fake covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and even injecting people with disinfectants.

After Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks, poison control centers received a spike in emergency calls.

That’s fifteen things. Should I keep going? Ok, I’ll keep going. The 20 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#16. Trump presided over a net loss of 2.9 million American jobs — the worst recorded jobs numbers of any U.S. president in history.

#17. Trump profited off the presidency, making an estimated $160 million from foreign countries while he was president.

#18. Trump also billed the Secret Service over $1 million for the privilege of staying at his golf clubs and other properties while they protected him. That’s your money!

#19. Trump caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history when he didn’t get funding for his border wall, which he said Mexico was going to pay for.  

#20. Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40% — more than in any other four-year presidential term — largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

You didn’t really think I was stopping at 20, did you? We’re going to 25 —

#21. Trump separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the border, with no plan to ever reunite them, putting babies in cages.

#22. The Muslim Ban. Yes, Trump really did try to ban Muslims from entering the country.

#23. Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the U.S. mission to Palestine.

#24. Trump tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.

#25. And finally, Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Goh-lahn Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.

So there you have it, folks: The 25 Worst — Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did I mention the impeachments? We’ve got to do the impeachments. Let’s go to 30.

#26. Trump broke the law by trying to withhold nearly $400 million of U.S. aid for Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s Pres. Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.

#27. Trump personally attacked and ruined the careers of everyone who stood in the way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.

#28. To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.

#29. For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

#30. Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.

So those are the 30 Worst Things —

I’ll go to 35.

#31. Long before Election Day, Trump started making false claims that the election would be rigged.

#32. After losing, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department and attorney general told him it was not.

#33. Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.

#34. Trump ordered the Department of Justice to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.”

#35. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state leaders in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results.

We may go to 40.

#36. When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral votes cast by fake electors in multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among the many members of his inner circle who have been criminally indicted for this scheme.

#37. Trump tried to bully Vice President Pence into obstructing the certification of the election.

#38. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on Jan 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.

#39. Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.

#40. Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and…

TRUMP: …fight like hell.

#41 — Yes, yes, I know, bear with me.

Trump betrayed his oath to defend the nation by doing nothing to stop the Jan 6 violence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.

#42. On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.

#43. The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including 7 Republican senators.

So that’s the two impeachments and the Big Lie, but wait, we haven’t dealt with Russia, right? So we’re going to 50.

#44. In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn. This was documented in the Mueller report.

#45. When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.

#46. Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGann to fire Mueller. McGann refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.

#47. When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGann to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.

#48. Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.

#49. Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.

#50. Trump was not charged for criminal obstruction of justice because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than a thousand former federal prosecutors who served under both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.

So those are the 50 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency. Now I could go on…

And I will! The 75 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#51. Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but…

His campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes.

So was one of his closest associates.

His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes.

So did his personal lawyer

His National Security Adviser

The Chief Financial Officer of his business

A campaign foreign policy adviser

And one of his campaign fundraisers.

They all committed crimes, and Trump pardoned most of them.

#52. Trump said he’d drain the Washington swamp. But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history

#53. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.

#54. Trump hosted a Russian Foreign Minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.

Oh, and Trump’s economic policies!

#55 Trump promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. How’d that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise? Of course not! Nobody did!

#56. Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.

#57. Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.

#58. Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flacks who made it harder for workers to unionize.

#59. Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to get out of paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.

#60. Trump repeatedly suggested he might serve more than two terms in violation of the Constitution — and continues to do so.

#61. Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries.

#62. Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Luckily this was struck down by the courts.

#63. Trump called climate change a “hoax.”

#64. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

#65. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.

#66. Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

#67. Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. And striking down the ACA’s protections for the roughly 130 million people with pre-existing conditions could have driven up their insurance premiums or led to a loss of coverage.

#68. Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.

#69. By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.

#70. Trump lied. Constantly. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

#71. Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents on his way out of the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.

#72. Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.

#73. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Trump delayed $20 billion of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days.

#74. Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest.

#75. Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, placing Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.

Honestly, there’s so much more, from exchanging “love letters” with North Korea’s brutal dictator to publicly denigrating a Gold Star military widow and making her cry, to the way he attacked journalists, to late night tweet binges.

Look, I can understand why a lot of people want to block all of this out of their memories. But we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation.

And we sure as hell can’t afford to put him back there.

[legokingfisher]

NO WAY NO FUCKING WAY HOW DO YOU MISS AGAIN?????

[simply-ivanka]

Suspect in second Trump assassination attempt identified |

[darkmaga-retard]

Kevin Barrett

Sep 19, 2024

I should know something about politics and madness. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have both questioned my sanity on national television. But they and other mainstream purveyors of partisanship may be the crazy ones. Below are my thoughts on that subject. For a different take, listen to Jim Fetzer push back against my criticism of some of his work on Sandy Hook, and opine on politics and madness, when he sits in for me on Revolution Radio this Friday September 20 noon to 2 pm Eastern—click on Studio B. (Please note that I am traveling this week and doing fewer broadcasts than usual.)

Can politics drive people crazy? Or do crazy people naturally gravitate to politics? And do psychopaths, who are not crazy but just evil, deviously manipulate the craziness of politics and its partisans?Those are among the questions raised by the latest alleged Trump assassination attempt. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, apparently spent the night in the bushes outside Trump International Golf Club last Sunday, then took a potshot at the ex-president and fled when Secret Service agents returned fire.

Routh was, shall we say, “political.” Substacker Eugyppius writes:

As we would expect from a crazy person, Routh’s political allegiances show no clear pattern. He claims to have supported Trump in 2016, but he didn’t vote in that election. Later he turned on Trump and used his Twitter account to express support for Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, to deride Biden as“sleepy Joe,” and to advocate for Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy in the 2024 Republican primary. All the while he appears to have made various small donations to Democratic organisations.

The war in Ukraine pushed Routh over the edge. He flew to Kiev with ambitions of fighting the Russians, but because he was in his mid-fifties and mentally unstable, the International Legion turned him down. He responded by styling himself as a military recruiter working to fly under-occupied Afghans to Europe to defend Ukrainian democracy. Of course, he did not recruit anybody. What he did do, was set up a creepy protest tent at Independence Square in Kiev, which he called the “International Volunteer Center” …

[the-eternal-quest-for-balance]

The FBI, DHS, CIA, et al, it seems are just going to keep trying. This is twice an assassination attempt has occurred and twice there had to be inside help to make it possible.

They're either going to set the Country on fire or get us into WW III. Democrats are Communists and human misery is their specialty.

[gepetordi1]

Donald Trump Survives Second Assassination Attempt As Corporate Media Goes Into Full Damage Control Mode...

Trump ‘safe and well’ after being targeted by would-be assassin with scoped AK-47 just a few hundred yards away while ex-prez played golf.

Law enforcement sources told The Post that the suspect is 58-year-old Ryan Routh of Hawaii. An evidence box which may contain the rifle used to during the shooting near Trump International Golf Club while Former President Trump was playing golf.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting former President Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee, forcing a federal agency to pay well above government rates.

The Committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the Department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The Committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trump’s foreign properties — where agents accompanied his family repeatedly — and because the records stopped in September 2021.

The records the panel obtained provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business — by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits.

The records also make clear that Mr. Trump’s son Eric — who ran the family business while his father was in office — provided a misleading account of what his company was charging.

In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only “like $50” for hotel rooms during presidential visits.

Instead, records obtained by the Committee showed, the Trump International Hotel in Washington repeatedly charged the Secret Service rates more than $600 per night. In one case, the hotel charged the Secret Service $1,160 a night for a room used while protecting Eric Trump in 2017. That was more than four times higher than the government’s usual spending limit for Washington hotels — but Secret Service officials approved the expense, according to the records.

The same year, the documents showed, Mr. Trump’s hotel in Washington charged the service $1,185 for a room used while guarding Donald Trump Jr.

“Per diem rates could not be obtained,” a Secret Service record said, referring to the government’s official maximum rate. By law, the department is allowed to exceed those maximum payments when its protective mission requires the additional cost.

Previously, the highest rate that the Trump Organization was known to have charged the government for a hotel room was $650 per night, for rooms at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

“What gets me is, over and over again, how they just lie about this stuff,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the Chairwoman of the Oversight Committee. “Documents don’t lie.”

On Monday, Eric Trump issued a statement saying that the Trump Organization “would have been substantially better off if hospitality services were sold to full-paying guests.” He did not address the discrepancy between the rates he claimed the company had charged and the rates shown in the record.

In an interview, Ms. Maloney said the documents made clear that Mr. Trump was taking advantage of taxpayers by effectively requiring Secret Service agents to stay at properties he owned, and then billing the government exorbitant charges.

“This raises concerns that the Trump Organization was profiting off the presidency,” Ms. Maloney said. “It’s excessive.”

She said the Committee would continue to investigate how Mr. Trump’s businesses leveraged the presidency to his financial advantage, particularly regarding connections to foreign governments.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Ms. Maloney said.

While Mr. Trump was in office, his hotels were visited repeatedly by people seeking to influence his administration, including foreign leaders, embassies and telecom executives who needed the Justice Department’s approval for a pending merger. Since Mr. Trump still owned his businesses, he could benefit directly from their patronage.

In the past, Trump Organization representatives have said that the company billed the government “at cost” and could have made more money renting rooms to other guests. The company continued to charge the Secret Service since Mr. Trump left office and began living at his properties full-time.

In 2020, The Washington Post reported that the government had spent more than $2.5 million at Trump properties during his presidency. The payments came from multiple agencies and were largely prompted by Mr. Trump’s travel.

The State Department, for instance, paid the Mar-a-Lago club thousands of dollars for expenses related to Mr. Trump’s summits with foreign leaders there — including charges for flowers, food and even glasses of water.

The White House paid Mar-a-Lago more than $1,000 to cover 54 alcoholic drinks consumed by Trump aides in a private bar, as first reported by ProPublica.

And the Secret Service paid Mr. Trump’s company to follow his family to properties around the country and the world. Many of those charges were related to the former president’s visits to Mar-a-Lago and Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. — where the Secret Service paid the Trump Organization $17,000 per month, an unusually high rent for that area, to use a “cottage” on the grounds of the golf club.

The Secret Service also paid the Trump Organization for rooms it used while protecting top administration officials — including Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin — during their stays at Trump properties.

The records obtained by the Oversight Committee show that the Secret Service has made at least 669 payments to Mr. Trump’s company, Ms. Maloney said on Monday in a public letter to Kimberly A. Cheatle, the agency’s director.

The Secret Service issued a written statement saying only that it would respond to the Committee’s requests for more information but did not provide any additional details.

Mr. Trump continued to own his businesses throughout his presidency, though he said he had given day-to-day management to his adult sons. The Trump Organization’s charges did not violate the law, ethics experts said, since presidents are largely exempt from conflict-of-interest laws that apply to other federal officials.

[mariacallous]

Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected gunman involved in an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida on Sunday, was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction more than 20 years ago.

“I figured he was either dead or in prison by now,” Tracy Fulk, the charging officer in the case, tells WIRED. “I had no clue that he had moved on and was continuing his escapades.”

According to court records from the Guilford District Court in North Carolina obtained by WIRED, Routh was arrested by the Greensboro Police Department on December 16, 2002.

Local reporting from Greensboro News and Record in 2002 states that Routh was pulled over by police during a traffic stop. Routh then drove to the business United Roofing, where he proceeded to barricade himself for three hours, the police said at the time.

Fulk says he was well known in the area, and that police would get alerts about him allegedly related to, as she remembers, weapons and explosives.

“One night I recognized him in his vehicle,” she says. “I knew he didn’t have a driver’s license, so I stopped him right in front of his roofing shop, which was what used to be on Lee Street in Greensboro. He stopped, and as I approached his truck he pulled a sack away from the center of the seat, and I saw a gun. So of course I drew my gun and started saying, ‘Hey! Show me your hands, show me your hands.’ And he just basically pulled into his driveway and ran into his house. So we ended up having a [Special Response Team] callout and a big standoff for a couple of hours before they went in and we arrested him.”

Routh was charged with possession of a fully automatic machine gun, referred to in court filings as a weapon of mass destruction. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, as well as driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement, according to Greensboro News and Record.

While the disposition of the case isn’t entirely clear, Routh did plead guilty to carrying a concealed gun.

Trump was not harmed on Sunday while playing golf. Law enforcement apprehended Routh after a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle sticking out of a perimeter fence on the course and engaged with the threat, firing at least four rounds in that direction. It’s unclear whether the gunman fired a shot. Law enforcement later found an AK-47 style rifle with a scope and a GoPro in the bushes.

The gunman was reportedly seen fleeing the scene and getting into a black Nissan; a witness took photos of the car and license plate, said Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw at a Sunday press conference. “We had that information,” said Bradshaw. “Our real-time crime center put it out to the license plate readers, and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I-95.” Routh was arrested soon after.

The FBI has said they are investigating “what appears to be an attempted assassination” of Trump. This is the second assassination attempt on the former president; the first occurred on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“My resolve is only stronger after another attempt on my life,” Trump wrote in a fundraising email after the apparent assassination attempt. “I will never slow down. I will never give up. I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!”

Fulk says Routh was well known for getting into armed confrontations with police. “I wasn’t the only one who had a standoff with him,” she says. “We always knew he had weapons.” Guilford County court records show Routh was charged dozens of times, often for driving-related offenses, going back to the early 1980s. In regards to why he wasn’t in jail, Fulk says, “All we can do is arrest them, and then obviously it goes into the court system and they decide all of that. It’s frustrating at times.”

The Greensboro Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lawyer who represented Routh in his 2003 divorce.

In 2023, Routh told The New York Times that he traveled to Ukraine after the Russian invasion to aid Ukraine and support the war effort. He said he planned to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for Ukraine. There is no evidence that Routh traveled to Ukraine or was successful at recruitment. Social media accounts that appear to be controlled by Routh have been taken down, but were reportedly full of erratic posts espousing Covid conspiracies, threats against Russia, and in support of politicians of a variety of ideologies.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jill Colvin, Colleen Long, and Lindsay Whitehurst at AP, via HuffPost:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump was the target Sunday of “what appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, the FBI said, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life. The former president said he was safe and well, and authorities held a man in custody. U.S. Secret Service agents posted a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away. An agent fired and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said. The man was later taken into custody in a neighboring county.

It was the latest jarring moment in a campaign year marked by unprecedented upheaval. On July 13, Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear. Eight days later, Democratic President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, giving way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the party’s nominee. And it was sure to add to the questions about Secret Service protective operations after the agency’s admitted failures in preventing the attempted assassination of Trump this summer. In an email to supporters, Trump said: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” He wrote: “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”

He returned to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach where he lives, according to a person familiar with Trump’s movements who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear whether the incident would affect his campaign schedule. He was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on Monday night on the social media site X for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. He planned a town hall Tuesday in Flint, Michigan, with his former press secretary, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, followed by a rally Wednesday on New York’s Long Island.

[...] The Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played, but there are several areas around the perimeter of the property where golfers are visible from the fence line. Secret Service agents and officers in golf carts and on ATVs generally secure the area several holes ahead and behind Trump when he plays. Agents also usually bring an armored vehicle onto the course to shelter Trump quickly should a threat arise. The Palm Beach County sheriff said the entire golf course would have been lined with law enforcement if Trump were the president, but because he is not, “security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump was the target of an apparent assassination attempt at his Trump International Golf Club. This is the 2nd assassination attempt against him this campaign cycle, just over two months after the assassination attempt in Butler, PA.

[dertaglichedan]

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, has been identified as the suspect who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump while he was playing golf this afternoon at his Trump International Golf Club in Florida.

Routh was arrested shortly after the incident for allegedly pointing an AK-47 assault rifle at the former President from outside the golf club premises. According to law enforcement, when Routh aimed the weapon, Secret Service agents engaged the suspect, who then fled in a vehicle. He was apprehended a short time later.

[transparentgentlemenmarker]

Nouvel attentat les autorités pensent que les coups de feu tirés au Trump International Golf Club étaient destinés à l'ancien président Donald Trump, selon des sources sûres 15 septembre 2024

La vigilance d’un agent du Secret Service a probablement sauvé la vie de Donald Trump, dimanche, à West Palm Beach, où l’ancien président pratiquait son sport préféré sur un terrain de golf portant son nom. Vers 13 h 30, l’agent, qui le précédait d’un trou et ses compagnons, a aperçu le canon d’un fusil à travers le grillage d’une clôture longeant le terrain. Il a aussitôt ouvert le feu en direction de la personne qui tenait l’arme, la forçant à prendre la fuite.

Le shérif Ric Bradshaw, du comté de Palm Beach, montre une photo des objets appartenant au suspect. La police a retrouvé dans des buissons un AK-47 avec une lunette de visée, deux sacs à dos et une caméra GoPro avec laquelle le suspect, identifié comme étant Ryan Wesley Routh, 58 ans, voulait vraisemblablement filmer l’assassinat de Donald Trump.

Des agents du FBI devant le Trump International Golf Club à West Palm Beach, en Floride

Des élus républicains et démocrates ont de nouveau exprimé leurs inquiétudes à propos de la protection offerte par le Secret Service.

Trump a regagné Mar-a-Lago, sa résidence en Floride, en fin d’après-midi. Un peu plus tôt, il s’était voulu à la fois rassurant et inébranlable dans un courriel adressé aux membres de sa liste de donateurs potentiels. « Des coups de feu ont été tirés dans mon entourage, mais avant que la rumeur ne devienne incontrôlable, je tiens à vous dire ceci : JE SUIS EN SÉCURITÉ ET EN BONNE SANTÉ ! », a-t-il fait savoir. « Rien ne me ralentira. Je ne me rendrai jamais ! »

Ryan Wesley Routh the killer was a Democrat who apparently moved to Hawaii. He hated Donald Trump. He was working to raise funds and support for Ukraine.

[aestariiwilderness]

Annnnnnnnd they tried to kill Trump again. Guess he won the Harris debate too

Officials believe intention was to target Trump, sources say

From CNN's Kristen Holmes and John Miller

Officials believe an armed individual intended to target former President Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Club, according to sources briefed on the matter.

A car has been stopped in relation to the incident nearby, according to a law enforcement official.

Supposedly, he had a Go Pro and an AK-47.