Years before the gunman allegedly attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Sunday, U.S. authorities had already been warned of the threat he posed.
The suspect was apprehended on Sunday after being caught traveling northbound on Interstate 95. Secret Service agents had earlier spotted the barrel of his gun protruding from the bushes at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The suspected gunman in Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump had been hiding near the former president’s Florida golf course for approximately 12 hours before a Secret Service agent identified him and fired.”
A nurse who had encountered the suspect multiple times in Kyiv in 2022 expressed grave concern about his violent threats. She reported her fears to a Customs and Border Protection officer, highlighting the suspect as a top priority.
“She showed the officer a notebook listing more than a dozen names of Americans and others whose actions had alarmed her, she recounted. Under the heading ‘Overall Predatory Behavior (or antisocial traits)’ were four names. (The gunman’s) was at the top,” the Journal noted.
In 2023, the nurse also submitted an online report to the FBI and Interpol expressing her concerns about the suspected gunman. However, she reported that neither Customs nor the FBI followed up with her.
A French individual who encountered the suspected gunman in Kyiv in 2022 told The Wall Street Journal that the suspect was “deeply agitated by Trump’s efforts to negotiate with Putin rather than fully supporting Ukraine.”
In 2019, the FBI received a tip about the suspected gunman’s possession of a firearm despite his felony status. The FBI notified authorities in Honolulu, where he was residing at the time, but eventually closed the investigation.
According to former CIA officer Sarah Adams, who managed humanitarian aid groups in Ukraine, the suspected gunman’s social media posts led aid organizations to exclude him from their Signal groups and notify the State Department.
