One day after federal prosecutors filed gun charges against a man suspected of attempting to ambush Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course, Florida’s governor elbowed his way into the case, saying he wants the state to pursue its own investigation and seek an attempted murder charge against the former president’s would-be assassin.
On Tuesday, DeSantis took the unusual step of signing an executive order that directs a statewide prosecutor under Florida’s attorney general to “ensure that charges are brought for all violations of state law.” He also directed Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution “to ensure public transparency in the investigatory process,” questioning the federal government’s ability to be impartial to Trump.
“In my judgment, it is not in the best interest of our state or of our nation to have the same federal agencies that are seeking to prosecute Donald Trump leading this investigation, especially when the most serious, straightforward offense constitutes a violation of state law, not federal law,” DeSantis said during a Tuesday morning press conference in West Palm Beach.
DeSantis announced the state’s plans after Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg backed away from the case to allow federal investigators to take the lead. Aronberg, a Democrat, said Tuesday that his office would consider filing charges if a law enforcement agency requested it.
“We work together with our federal partners and do not engage in turf wars,” Aronberg said.
DeSantis’ executive order thrust him into the national conversation over what appears to be the second attempt on Trump’s life in little more than two months – though it’s unclear whether the federal government or even the former president welcome his actions, which legal experts said could complicate the case.
Neither the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, which is prosecuting suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, the FBI nor Trump’s campaign would comment on Tuesday. DeSantis’ office declined to answer questions.
Former veteran prosecutors in Miami said the proposition of parallel federal and state investigations of the same crime and suspect may be legal, but would be counterproductive.
Jon Sale, a former federal prosecutor in Miami and New York who worked on the Watergate case, said the Trump investigation has been politicized by Florida’s governor, a former prosecutor with the U.S. Navy.
“Right after the incident, there was a muddle over the way local and federal enforcement were working together cooperatively,” Sale said. “As soon as the investigation was turned over to the federal prosecutors, it turned into a political football.”
“When the investigation turned into an attempt on the life of a former president, it became clear there was a compelling federal interest,” Sale said. “That interest should be vindicated. If it’s not for any reason, then the state can pursue their own case. State prosecutors and investigators should be working with the federal authorities, not competing with them.”
‘We will not wait on the federal government to act’
Investigators believe Routh, 58, had been waiting at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach overnight for nearly 12 hours when he was first spotted hiding in the bushes near the sixth green by a Secret Service agent on Sunday afternoon as Trump played a round of golf several hundred yards away.
Secret Service personnel fired at Routh, who according to law enforcement never got off a round from his SKS-style rifle. He fled the scene, and was stopped in Martin County.
Routh is likely to eventually face federal charges of making threats against a former president, or against a candidate for president who is protected by the Secret Service. But on Monday he was initially charged with gun-related crimes in the apparent assassination attempt of Trump.
DeSantis said the state will prosecute Routh to the “fullest extent of the law.”
“This deranged, would-be assassin broke Florida law, and we will not wait on the federal government to act,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said in a statement Tuesday.
Moody said she directed statewide prosecutors to assist the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Florida Highway Patrol to work “quickly to uncover the facts behind this latest attempt on President Trump’s life and provide trust and transparency to the American people.”
Trump hasn’t publicly commented on the ongoing FBI investigation, though he has praised the Secret Service and law enforcement officials for their response to the apparent assassination attempt.
Two Trump allies said that there’s no reason to doubt the FBI’s ability to probe the incident – at least for now – but added that they hope to see a steady flow of information coming from investigators soon, arguing that more public disclosures would be necessary to head off any concerns about the probe.
A jurisdictional question
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, who has been a central figure in the case since Sunday, joined DeSantis at Tuesday’s press conference and thanked the governor for getting involved. Martin County Sheriff William Snyder also attended the event, as did FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass.
But several attorneys familiar with state and federal cases questioned whether a parallel investigation into the same crime and suspect would hurt, rather than help.
“It makes the situation more complicated,” said Miami attorney David Weinstein, a former chief of the National Security Section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.
Weinstein, who also served as a state prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, said the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office are better equipped to run the investigation because of the facts of the case: Routh, a convicted felon in North Carolina, is suspected of traveling to Florida while carrying a semi-automatic rifle with an obliterated serial number in an apparent attempt to assassinate Trump on his golf course in West Palm Beach.
“I do think this is a better fit for the feds, with state and local investigators assisting them,” Weinstein said. “Based on my experience, unless the state and federal investigations work together, the investigations don’t succeed.”
Weinstein said the “only way a statewide prosecutor would have jurisdiction over this matter is if the offense were committed across judicial circuit lines, and that’s not the case here.”
The Office of Statewide Prosecution can only prosecute crimes that impact two or more judicial circuits in the State of Florida, or that focus on “complex, often large scale organized criminal activity,” according to its website.
Martin and Palm Beach counties are in separate judicial districts. DeSantis mentioned the arrest in Martin County in the executive order assigning the case to the Office of Statewide Prosecution. The governor’s press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, declined to comment on the rationale for the multi-jurisdictional argument.
Judges have previously tossed out cases brought by DeSantis’ Office of Election Crimes and Security, ruling the attorney generals’ statewide prosecutors didn’t have jurisdiction to bring the charges. Prosecutions in Miami-Dade and Broward were revived on appeal after the Florida Legislature changed state law clarifying that statewide prosecutors could handle the cases.
McClatchy Chief White House Correspondent Michael Wilner and Miami Herald reporter Max Greenwood contributed to this report.
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