The disclosure, included in a court filing, paints the clearest picture yet of an itinerant contractor who repeatedly said he was willing to die to defend Ukraine.
A 58-year-old man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump acknowledged in a prewritten note that he had planned the attack — and even predicted his failure, offering $150,000 to anyone who could “complete the job,” according to a federal court filing on Monday.
The man, Ryan W. Routh, staked out the grounds of Mr. Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., for a month before the episode, the filing said. He positioned himself outside the fence at the sixth hole of the course on Sept. 15, before a Secret Service agent scouting one hole ahead of the former president’s group spotted him and the barrel of his gun.
At the time he was seen, Mr. Routh had aligned himself directly to the sixth hole, with the intention of shooting Mr. Trump from a relatively short distance with a semiautomatic rifle, prosecutors said. The rifle had a bullet in the chamber and a total of 11 rounds.
“I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster,” Mr. Routh wrote in a note placed inside a box, left at a friend’s house, found by investigators after he was arrested. “It is up to you to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”
Prosecutors also cited a message Mr. Routh wrote that Mr. Trump was unfit to be president. Mr. Routh had left the note at the house several months before the shooting, an indication that he had been planning the assassination for a long time.
Mr. Routh was scheduled to appear before a federal judge in West Palm Beach on Monday morning for a detention hearing.
Prosecutors filed the new information in a memo written to convince a federal judge to detain Mr. Routh indefinitely while he awaits trial on two gun charges. The filing paints the clearest picture to date of an itinerant and impoverished contractor who repeatedly professed his willingness to die to defend Ukraine.
Law enforcement officials, searching Mr. Routh’s Nissan S.U.V., found “a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October 2024 and venues where the former president had appeared or was expected to be present,” according to the memo.
Agents also found six cellphones — including one that contained a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County to Mexico — 12 pairs of gloves, a Hawaii driver’s license in Mr. Routh’s name and a passport.
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