WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump, following an apparent assassination attempt on him on Sunday, claimed that overheated rhetoric from Democrats was responsible for him being under threat.
It turns out, records show, that threats come with the office that he once held and is trying to win again, and occur far more frequently than is widely known.
An examination of Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, known as TRAC, shows that since 1986 when Ronald Reagan was in the White House, the federal government has prosecuted 1,444 cases of threats against presidents or others in line of presidential succession.
The highest number of prosecutions in a single year came in 1987 during the Reagan years when there were 73. TRAC data shows there were 72 cases brought in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration. The Bush administration also had the highest number of cases over its eight-year span with 383, a time of heightened tension during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors brought 343 cases when Bill Clinton was president and 213 during former President Barack Obama's two terms. There were 68 cases brought in Trump's first term. Reagan had 200 in the last three years of his presidency and 213 cases were brought during George H.W. Bush's one term.
The number of convictions was highest in the George W. Bush and Clinton years.
TRAC is a widely used database research tool established in the 1980s by the Newhouse School and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and created with government data obtained through federal open records laws and court litigation.
Trump falls into numerous categories as a former president and presidential candidate. There are statutes pertaining to threats or attacks on both.
So far, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, has been charged with possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Additional charges are possible.
Authorities were continuing to examine Routh’s potential motive and movements in the days and weeks leading up to Sunday, when a Secret Service agent assigned to Trump’s security detail spotted a firearm poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing. The agent fired, and Routh escaped into a sport utility vehicle, leaving behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food.
The attempt on Trump is unique because he is a former president seeking to regain the office who has now faced two attempts. But he is not the only former president who survived an assassination attempt trying to retake the office. Teddy Roosevelt was running as a former president in 1912 when he was shot in the chest while campaigning in Milwaukee.
“This is not unprecedented. People tend to forget how violence has been around the United States for a long time,” said David Head, a historian at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
There have been a number of notable instances that are not included in the TRAC data. Reagan was severely wounded in 1982 and then-President Gerald Ford had two attempts on his life in a 17-day period in 1975. George W. Bush was in Tbilsi, Georgia with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili in 2005 when someone rolled a hand grenade into the room that did not explode.
Clinton was in the White House on Oct. 29, 1994, when Francisco Martin Duran, then 26, opened fire outside and fired about 20 rounds at the building. No one was injured but Duran was convicted of attempting to assassinate the president and sentenced to 40 years. According to the Bureau of Prisons website, he is in a federal prison in Virginia and is not eligible for release until 2029.
Earlier this year, a New Hampshire man charged with threatening Republican candidates was found dead while a jury deliberated his case.
Police patrol on a bridge beside the Mar-a-Lago estate of Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, as a supporter flies flags to express support for Trump one day after an apparent assassination attempt, in Palm Beach, Fla., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
A mission specialist for the company that owned the Titan submersible that imploded last year told the U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday that the firm was staffed by competent people who wanted to “make dreams come true.”
Renata Rojas was the latest person to testify who was connected to Titan owner OceanGate. An investigatory panel had previously listened to two days of testimony that raised questions about the company's operations before the doomed mission. OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was among five people who died when the submersible imploded en route to the site of the Titanic wreck in June 2023.
Rojas' testimony struck a different tone than some of the earlier witnesses, who described the company as troubled from the top down and focused more on profit than science or safety.
“I was learning a lot and working with amazing people,” Rojas said. “Some of those people are very hardworking individuals that were just trying to make dreams come true.”
Rojas also said she felt the company was sufficiently transparent during the run-up to the Titanic dive. Her testimony was emotional at times, with the Coast Guard panel proposing a brief break at one point so she could collect herself.
Rojas is a member of the Explorers Club, which lost members Hamish Harding and Paul-Henri Nargeolet in the Titan implosion. The club described Rush as “a friend of The Explorers Club” after the implosion.
“I knew what I was doing was very risky. I never at any point felt unsafe by the operation,” Rojas said in testimony Thursday.
Earlier this month, the Coast Guard opened a public hearing that is part of a high-level investigation into the cause of the implosion. The public hearing began on Sept. 16 and some of the testimony has focused on problems the company had prior to the fatal 2023 dive.
Investigators also released underwater footage of the submersible wreck. The footage shows the submersible's tail cone and other debris on the ocean floor.
During the hearing, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said Tuesday he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money.
“The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”
Also expected to testify on Thursday is former OceanGate scientific director Steven Ross. The hearing is expected to run through Friday with more witnesses still to come and resume next week.
Lochridge and other witnesses have painted a picture of a company led by people who were impatient to get the unconventionally designed craft into the water. The deadly accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.
Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.
OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.
During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about the Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if the Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.
One of the last messages from Titan’s crew to Polar Prince before the submersible imploded stated, “all good here,” according to a visual recreation presented earlier in the hearing.
When the submersible was reported missing, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Four days later, wreckage of the Titan was found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said.
No one on board survived. Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were the other two people killed in the implosion.
OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. The Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.
This June 2023 United States Coast Guard still frame from video provided by Pelagic Research Services, shows remains of the Titan submersible, center, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Coast Guard Video courtesy Pelagic Research Services via AP)
This June 2023 United States Coast Guard still frame from video provided by Pelagic Research Services, shows remains of the Titan submersible, center, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Coast Guard Video courtesy Pelagic Research Services via AP)
In a still from from a video animation provided by the United States Coast Guard an illustration of the Titan submersible, right, is shown near the ocean floor of the Atlantic Ocean, as June 18, 2023 communications between the submersible and the support vessel Polar Prince, not shown, are represented at left. (United States Coast Guard via AP)
This June 2023 image provided by Pelagic Research Services shows remains of the Titan submersible on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. (Pelagic Research Services via AP)
