The man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump on a golf course in September appeared in federal court on Friday where his attorneys claimed that the government was withholding evidence.
The attorneys made the arguments at the Alto Lee Adams Federal Courthouse in Fort Pierce in front of Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the case.
Ryan Routh was charged in September for the alleged attempt as he hid on the golf course at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach while the president was playing.
The defense requested to test fire the rifle that Routh had with him at the golf course, arguing that it may not have been in good enough to condition to fire a long-range shot, according to CBS 12.
“Is it your theory that the weapon could not have fired within the distance alleged?” Cannon asked.
“It is old, and we want our expert to determine is it operable, is it accurate, what kind of distance can it reach?” Defense attorney Kristy Militello responded.
Prosecutors strongly objected to the request.
Routh’s appearance in court comes after the president told reporters at the White House this week that he had plans to release a report on the different attempts that were made on his life last year.
“They are giving me a report next week sometime, and I do believe I’ll be releasing, I want to release the report,” Trump said. “You had one who had three apps, two of which were foreign, supposedly, and who has the biggest white shoe law firm in Pennsylvania, even though they don’t live in necessarily a white shoe area. What’s that all about?”
“The other one had seven or six cell phones, and I don’t have six cell phones,” he continued. “And why would somebody have six cell phones? So we’re going to be releasing a report on that soon.”
Trump said that the lack of information about what happened makes him suspicious.
“When you have three apps and two of them are foreign and you had an FBI that wouldn’t report on it, they didn’t want to say why, I would say that could be suspicious,” he said. “On the second one, he had six cell phones, that’s a lot of cell phones, and a couple of them had some strange markings on them. So yeah, I want to find out, and I would be willing to release it.”
