The more Chelsea Walsh talked to the eccentric fellow American who seemed to pop up in every square and cobblestone street of Ukraine’s capital, the more she got creeped out.
Walsh was in Kyiv as a nurse and aid worker in the early days of the war in Ukraine. Ryan Routh was there to recruit foreign soldiers to fight the Russians. But Walsh never saw him make much progress and instead watched him grow increasingly angry and unhinged, kicking a panhandler, threatening to burn down a music studio that slighted him and speaking of his own children with seething hatred.
Just as troubling, she said, was Routh’s obsessive, oddly specific plotting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, describing the various explosives, poisons and cross-border maneuvers that Routh would employ “to kill him in his sleep.”
“Ryan Routh is a ticking time bomb,” she recalled telling U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in an hourlong interview upon returning to the United States at Dulles International Airport near Washington in June 2022. She says she later repeated her concerns in separate tips to both the FBI and Interpol, the international policing group.
“There is one person you need to watch,” she said. “And that is Ryan Routh.”
Walsh says she never heard back about her tips and she did not think much more about Routh until she saw him in the news last Sunday as the 58-year-old accused of stalking Donald Trump at the former president’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in an apparent assassination attempt.
Walsh’s account was one of at least four reports to the U.S. government that, while not direct threats to Trump, raised suspicions about Routh in the years leading up to his arrest. Others included a tip to the FBI in 2019 about Routh being in possession of a firearm after a felony conviction, an online report by an aid worker to the State Department last year questioning Routh’s military recruiting tactics, and Routh’s own interview with Customs and Border Protection about those efforts, prompting a referral for a possible inquiry by Homeland Security Investigations.
What was done in response that could have stopped Routh or at least put him under greater scrutiny is not entirely clear. The agencies involved either did not respond to queries from media, have no record of such a report or had questions about whether the report warranted further investigation.
But some people are asking whether federal agencies are vigilant enough or even equipped enough to deal with a growing number of potential threats that are brought to their attention every day.
“Federal agencies ought to be on the highest alert to detect and combat these threats,” said Republican Sen Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Congress and the American people need assurance that the federal government is doing all it can.”
Walsh, who lives just a few miles from Trump’s golf course, said she cannot help but think all of this could have been avoided.
“The authorities have definitely dropped the ball on this,” she said. “They were warned.”
Sarah Adams, an ex-CIA officer who was behind the State Department tip, said she decided to act after learning Routh was trying to recruit former Afghan fighters with false promises of spots in the Ukrainian military.
She said she drafted a bulletin urging the 50 humanitarian aid groups she was helping in Ukraine to keep Routh at arm’s length, and she had her company send a similar online report to the State Department.
“There was plenty to look into,” said Adams, who lives in Tampa, Florida. “I don’t know if they even assigned someone to work it.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said there is no record of any complaints about Routh. He said he could not rule out that “someone didn’t have a communication with somebody somewhere.”
Similarly, Customs and Border Protection said it could not confirm Walsh had a meeting with one of its agents because it does not comment on individual cases. The FBI also declined to confirm Walsh’s warning, citing a policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Interpol did not respond to a request for comment.
Walsh showed the news agencies notes that she took while talking to Customs and Border Protection, and a text she sent to a friend about her messages to the FBI and Interpol with a time stamp soon after she sent them.
Routh, a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years moved to Hawaii, was being held on weapons charges related to the Trump case. His federal public defender, Kristy Militello, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh was never shy about speaking out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world.
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