A veteran FBI agent said Monday that he would be “shocked” if intelligence agencies did not already have would-be Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh on their radar for his travel and apparent efforts to recruit foreign fighters for Ukraine.
“I asked about it in almost every case I had, especially in counterterrorism Division at the FBI when I was there, what did the other intelligence agencies know about this American citizen out on the battlefield and who was recruiting in Afghanistan?” Jeff Danik told the John Solomon Reports podcast Monday.
“These are target countries, high criteria intelligence collection points for—are legitimate collection points—for our CIA, our NSA and our five eyes partners,” he said.
Danik is a 28-year veteran of the FBI with experience in domestic and international terrorism investigations, as well as white collar crime. The former agent said one of the first investigative steps would likely be for the FBI to contact other intelligence agencies about what data, if any, they had collected on Routh.
“So an American traipsing around in that battleground is going to perceive focus, I would be shocked if one of the intelligence agencies didn’t have his devices compromised,” he said. “All that data and collection is going to be classified, of course, but my question is, does it even exist? Do we know who he was contacting, who is contacted with it?”
