Megyn Kelly, Attorney Discuss If Alleged Second Would-Be Trump Assassin Has Any Possible Legal Defense
Megyn Kelly, Attorney Discuss If Alleged Second Would-Be Trump Assassin Has Any Possible Legal Defense
Matt Murphy on “The Megyn Kelly Show” discussing Trumps second alleged assassin.
Hailey Gomez
September 18, 2024
4:48 PM ET
Sirius XM’s Megyn Kelly and attorney Matt Murphy stated Wednesday on a podcast that former President Donald Trump’s second alleged shooter could possibly claim he wasn’t intending to harm anyone as a legal defense since he never fired any shots.
On Sunday, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested by officials after allegedly attempting to assassinate the former president at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. During an episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Kelly questioned Murphy if Routh’s defense attorneys could argue he was merely attempting to get Trump to “a point where he was scared” and never intending to actually harm him.
“Could he argue, Matt, ‘I wasn’t going to kill anybody?’ This isn’t like Butler, where the shooter fired shots, took a man’s life, and hit Trump. Could he argue, ‘I wanted him to listen to me about Ukraine? My plan was to get him, you know, to a point where he was scared and just to hear me out,’” Kelly said.
“Now I realize he had a GoPro and he had, they said, they call it ceramics in his backpack. Which my understanding is, I just learned yesterday, some sort of defense mechanism it’s like to help him be bulletproof if he took fire,” Kelly continued. “But that shows only that he was worried about somebody shooting him, not that he was necessarily going to shoot someone. So couldn’t a clever defense attorney potentially get him off on an argument like that since he didn’t actually pull the trigger?”
While Murphy echoed Kelly’s prediction, he highlighted how the 58-year-old had brought “ceramic plates,” which shows he was “preparing to engage in a gun battle.”
“I think you hit the nail on the head. I think that we were going to see something almost exactly like that. Also, that’s another thing that drives everybody crazy that’s mirroring it. They keep calling it ceramic tiles … these are called ceramic plates. That defeats high-caliber ammunition, so our soldiers in the military wear ceramic plates, and certain law enforcement will wear ceramic plates as well,” Murphy responded.
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“That also shows preparation, and you’re right, that shows that he’s preparing to engage in a gun battle where you can wear soft armor, is what it’s called, that will defeat handguns, but plates are for rifles like those carried by the Secret Service. So this was — there’s at least initially here — and this is all you know based on what’s just come public, but this appears to be a very planned out scheme,” Murphy continued.
Murphy additionally stated how Routh’s defense will most likely claim the gunman wanted “attention,” however, warned he didn’t believe it would go well in front of a Florida jury.
“And you’re right, we are at some point we’re going to hear some defense lawyer, whether it’s in state court or whether it’s in federal court, coming out and saying he just wanted his attention or, you know, he didn’t really want to do it blah blah blah,” Murphy said. “But I think based on the evidence we have so far, this was a 7.62 magazine with live ammunition in it, so good luck with that one, especially with the Florida jury.”
At the time of the incident, a Secret Service agent had spotted “a rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engaged that individual,” according to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. Routh then fled the scene and was later apprehended by local officials in Martin County, Florida, with authorities finding “an AK-47 style rifle with a scope” and two backpacks that contained ceramic plates and a GoPro where Routh had fled from.
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