Suspect in Investigation of Alleged Assassination Attempt Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hasn't fired a shot. This was stated by Ronald Rowe, acting director of the service that protects the presidents of the United States - "Secret Service", reported France Presse, quoted by BTA.
Spotted by a Secret Service agent who saw that he was armed and opened fire on him, the suspect fled but did not fire, Rowe said at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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"The suspect was not even close to firing a shot. We captured him and brought him to justice," said local Sheriff Rick Bradshaw, who was also present at the press conference.
According to searches of the suspect's phone, he spent nearly 12 hours in the area of Donald Trump's golf club before being spotted by security forces.
The suspect, Ryan Wesley Raut, a 58-year-old pro-Ukrainian American whom AFP interviewed in Kiev in 2022, was brought before a judge and read the charges, which will be formally presented to him in two weeks. They are for illegal possession of weapons and possession of weapons with an obliterated serial number. In addition to these charges, which could bring him respectively maximum sentences of 15 and 5 years in prison, the suspect will have to answer to other charges as well. His next court appearance will be on September 23. A week later, he will appear in court again and will be formally charged.
During the press conference in West Palm Beach, the head of the "Secret Service" said the suspect had an active online presence and agents are now looking into that, Reuters added.
At this time, there is no information that the suspect may have acted in conjunction with anyone else.
Meanwhile a spokesman for the "Secret Service" said he was aware of Elon Musk's post about Joe Biden and Kamal Harris, Reuters reported..
In the post in "Ex" Musk mentions that there have been no assassination attempts against Biden and Harris. These reflections of the billionaire who owns "X", followed the arrest of the man detained on suspicion of plotting to kill Trump.
Musk is a Trump supporter. In the post in "Ex" he says, "And no one is even trying to kill Biden/Kamala.". The post ends with a face emoji with raised eyebrows.
However, he was quickly criticized by users of "X" from the left, who said they were concerned that the words, seen by Musk's roughly 200 million followers, could incite someone to violence against Biden and Harris.
Musk deleted the post, but the "Secret Service" said he took it as fact, although he declined to comment on matters related to the intelligence work done to protect presidents.
The spokesman for the "Secret Service" said the office investigates basically all threats related to people placed under its protection.
Musk himself hinted in subsequent posts that he wanted to make a joke with his first post, but his joke was not appreciated by some people who did not know the context in which it was made.
Harris, who is the Democratic presidential nominee, and Biden released a statement expressing relief that Trump was unharmed and condemning political violence. And the White House criticized Musk for his post.
"Violence should only be condemned, it should never be encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Meanwhile, Trump reprimanded President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris after the new assassination attempt against him, reported France Press, quoted by BTA.
"The suspect shared the statements of Biden and Harris and acted as a result," told “Fox News” Trump. So he brought the charges he made in the first assassination attempt against him on July 13.
"Because of this narrative of the communist left, the bullets are whistling and things will only get worse,”, he added on his social network “Truth Social”.
"I have always condemned political violence. And I will always condemn it,”, Biden declared, and called for the differences between Americans to be settled peacefully through the ballot box, not under the threat of a gun.
After the new assassination attempt against Trump, the Republican and Biden had a phone conversation, the White House and the Trump campaign said. Following instructions from Biden's “Secret Service” has beefed up Trump's security measures since the first assassination attempt, even though he should not enjoy the same prerogatives as the sitting head of state. Security measures for Kamala Harris have also been strengthened, again by order of Biden.