Peters: Senate investigators seeking more answers after 2nd assassination attempt

The Michigan Democratic senator and chair of the Senate panel looking at assassination attempts said an interim report will be published soon

WASHINGTON _ Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters said Tuesday he and his team of investigators are in the beginning stages of probing the second assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.

Peters, who with the top Republican on the Senate panel, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, launched their initial probe in July after the first assassination attempt on Trump.

Speaking at The Monitor Breakfast Tuesday, Peters said they would be looking at the second attempt, Sunday at one of Trump’s golf clubs in Florida, in their overarching investigation.

He also said that their initial findings will likely come out in their interim report in about two weeks.

“We found an awful lot of information. You'll see a lot in that report, but we still need to know a lot more, and we are asking for more documents, more interviews from folks who are involved in that in that event, to get to the facts, we're still pushing to get that information,” Peters said.

Ryan Wesley Routh was quickly detained Sunday by local law enforcement and charged Monday with two federal gun charges. The 58-year-old man has a long rap sheet and expansive political views he talked about extensively on social media — ranging from supporting Trump and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to supporting Ukraine and President Joe Biden.

Law enforcement revealed in their charging document Monday that Routh had been camped at the Trump golf course for 12 hours before Secret Service spotted him and fired on him one hole ahead of where Trump was playing this past Sunday. The latest apparent attempt has ramped up the already wild 2024 race for the White House and renewed concerns about protecting the former president and broader questions of the Secret Service.

Asked by the Christian Science Monitor’s Linda Feldmann if there was any outside involvement in Routh being able to get within hundreds of yards of Trump, Peters said it was still too early to know.