Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) revealed on Thursday that federal investigators are not cooperating with Florida’s independent investigation of the second assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
During a Thursday interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, DeSantis provided an update regarding his executive order that authorized the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Florida Highway Patrol, and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to investigate the assassination attempt by 58-year-old Ryan Routh, which took place on Sunday at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
Asked by Ingraham whether federal authorities were cooperating with Florida’s investigation, DeSantis said, “The answer is ‘No, they’re not being cooperative.'” The Republican governor added, “I am concerned. For example, we were rebuffed, our investigators were rebuffed just going to the fence line outside of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.”
While DeSantis said the Biden-Harris administration does not appear willing to cooperate with state authorities and does not seem to want Florida to be involved in the investigation, he emphasized the state’s need to conduct its own investigation since Routh committed “multiple violations of Florida law across multiple jurisdictions.”
“We think at least three judicial circuits, this guy, Ryan Routh, committed potential violations of Florida law,” DeSantis added. “So we have a duty to investigate this. We have a duty to bring the appropriate charges, and we also have a duty to inform the public about how this happened.”
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The Florida governor told Ingraham that he does not believe the American people have confidence in the federal government’s investigation into the two assassination attempts against the former president.
DeSantis said, “As soon as we got word of this on Sunday, I told our guys in state law enforcement, save all his social media because you know Facebook will delete it, the tech companies want to delete it. Get his digital trail, store that, because we need to know, how did he end up in Florida to begin with? What is this pathway this guy has taken to end up in those bushes trying to assassinate the former president of the United States and current Republican nominee? How did that happen?”
Criticizing an apparent lack of transparency with investigations by the federal government, DeSantis slammed the Biden-Harris administration for not releasing “answers” regarding the first assassination attempt against Trump at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
DeSantis concluded, “Part of the investigation that our folks are doing is they are going to provide evidence they find of motive, evidence of his associations, and evidence of his beliefs. I think that’s very important that the public to get the real story on that.”
