Yesterday, Governor DeSantis signed an executive order opening Florida’s independent investigation into Ryan Routh’s attempted assassination. The Governor then held a well-attended press conference announcing the investigation, without a single federal official, and it knocked corporate media right off its rocking chair. Some platforms played the story straight, like the AP, which described it as a humdrum ‘parallel’ investigation, under the headline “Florida will launch criminal probe into apparent assassination attempt of Trump, governor says.”
In the brainless New York Times story, Florida’s independent investigation is painted as a conspiracy to embarrass Joe Biden between Governor DeSantis and Republicans in Congress. The Times’ story is headlined, “Why the Story of the Golf Course Shooting Will Be Told Twice.”
The Times’s headline was right, but for the wrong reason. The only reason we’ll get the feds’ side of the story is because they don’t want to be embarrassed by Florida. It’s already started, with the FBI admitting yesterday it once investigated and abandoned Routh in 2019.
A few of the Governor’s comments triggered the Times. The Governor, himself a lawyer, argued the feds have a conflict of interest in investigating Ryan Routh for attempting to kill Trump, since the feds are also simultaneously trying to drag Trump to jail, and are being directed by an Administration seeking to politically castrate the former President.
DeSantis also said the investigation should be open, transparent, and not smothered in inky bureaucratic blackness, like the Las Vegas shooting case has been. DeSantis observed, “I don’t think anyone can honestly claim that the federal government has been forthright and transparent about its past investigations. That’s just the reality. That’s just how these guys operate.”
But those comments, however politically incorrect to the Times, were not the reason why DeSantis said he opened an investigation. The undebatable reason for Florida’s involvement is the feds only charged Routh with two low-level firearms violations: possessing a weapon with a felony conviction and with an obliterated serial number. Together, the two charges amount only to a maximum of 15 years.
“To say you’re going to do a couple gun charges, that is not sufficient,” DeSantis icily declared.
Instead, Florida intends to charge Routh with attempted murder, a state-law crime carrying up to life in prison. Florida need only prove four things: Routh’s intent, preparation, a single act taken in furtherance of the plot, and that it would have succeeded if not interrupted. Those four required elements seem self-evident in the facts already known about Routh’s case.
The DOJ cannot charge Routh with attempted murder, since it’s a state crime. They can’t even charge him with attempted assassination, since candidate Trump doesn’t fit the statutory definition of a political target under federal law, because he hasn’t yet been elected and past officials don’t count. Florida has access to even more crimes, including grand theft auto,* a stolen license plate, and analogous state-level weapons violations.
(* DeSantis’ executive order described Routh’s car, the black Nissan, as ‘stolen,’ which is another state-level crime.)
No doubt the FBI wants to get ahold of him so he can get the Epps treatment: ANOTHER slap on the wrist for a serious violent crime.
The FBI has become the Demo-Rats SS brownshirts