Releasing Suspected Trump Would-Be Assassin’s Letter Not Standard Protocol: Retired FBI Agent

Routh's letter included a bounty offer for anyone who could succeed in assassinating Donald Trump. Many have criticized the DOJ's decision to release the letter, including former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr. Now joining us to discuss this is retired FBI agent Greg Schaefer, who worked in the FBI's elite hostage rescue team. His brother also spent 25 years as a Secret Service special agent. Greg, thank you very much for joining us. How are you today? Very good, thank you. So why do you think the Justice Department published a letter like this in full, and does it align with a standard protocol? Well, it's certainly not in line with standard protocols, and you would have to certainly question the intent behind releasing that letter. I mean, you know, it's obvious that the letter would very easily encourage or incite other mentally deranged individuals from possibly carrying out an assassination or assassination attempt on former President Trump. You know, that letter could have been handled so many different ways. They could have redacted that portion of the letter if they wanted to release it. They could have sealed the letter and then released it during the trial. But you have to question what was the intent of the DOJ to release that letter, because it's just not something that should have been done. And again, it just raises the question of the motives behind the FBI, the DOJ, the U.S. Secret Service. I mean, there's no doubt that those agencies have certainly lost the confidence, the faith, and the trust of the U.S. citizen, and this just exacerbates that distrust. What do you think could be some of the possibilities of intent? What type of considerations does the DOJ take into account when it comes to issues like this? Well, that's a $20,000 question. I don't want to really get into any conspiratorial judgments about why that letter was released. Again, it doesn't make sense. It's certainly a rash, if anything, to release a letter which clearly states that Ralph, the attempted assassination individual, was offering $150,000 to anyone who would carry out his plot to shoot the president. So again, I can't get my mind wrapped around why they would release that. You have to question why they did it, and I don't want to sit here and speculate on any conspiratorial opinions that myself and others may have on the intent behind releasing that. Perhaps there's a balance here, maybe. How do they balance risk and the need for transparency to the public? Yeah, I mean, being transparent is certainly something that we as American citizens are looking for in this investigation and the investigation of the first assassination attempt back in Butler, Pennsylvania that we haven't received yet either. So I think the public's waiting for that transparency to happen, and the DOJ can go out there and stand on a platform and say this is all part of our transparent investigation of what happened. But items like this, they don't add anything to America's public need for information. Again, all this letter does, in my opinion, is again, encourage or incite others to possibly take violent action against the former president. There was no reasoning judicially or evidentiary to release that letter right now. Any thoughts you have on other parts of the letter? Well, you know, his first sentence clearly admits that this was an assassination attempt, so that certainly will help the prosecution in the matter of getting that conviction on this individual. That, coupled with the eyewitnesses' testimony that, you know, they saw him get in a car, they actually, you know, took a picture of the car and the license plate number, and then all the other evidence that was acquired in the vehicle, and then further on evidence acquired by the cell phone companies that he was, you know, stalking the president for up to 30 days prior to the incident while working toward that prosecution. So, you know, that letter will certainly help in the prosecutor's case, but again, that did not need to be released, in my opinion, and the risks far outweigh any transparency that the DOJ was attempting to put out there. Let me just get your reaction on one specific part of the letter. So, the letter was given in a box to an unnamed person several months ago and only opened after the assassination attempt, yet in it, Routh wrote that he had failed in the attempt. Your thoughts on that? Well, you know, I think he, you know, he put the box and gave it to an individual and was probably told not to open it until he was arrested or was killed or whatever the case was, but, you know, it just seems like, you know, he was prepared to die and he wanted to leave his legacy, and leaving a letter like that in the event that he failed would just, you know, continue that legacy, and, you know, here we are talking about it. So, you know, I think it has a lot to do with ego and with what the shooter's intent was. Do you think the contents of the Well, as previously stated, it will certainly help the prosecution in their case against the shooter as, again, he fully admitted it was an assassination attempt and then goes on to offer a reward for somebody to continue on his path to killing the president. So, yeah, that letter will definitely come down to a big piece of evidence when it comes to prosecuting the case. Okay, is there any other evidence that perhaps is needed to really solidify this case? What are your thoughts on that? Well, you know, I don't have all the information right now that the Secret Service and the FBI are collecting, but, you know, when you look at it from what's available out there in open sources, again, we have the eyewitness testimony, we have the evidence that was collected in this vehicle, we have the cell phone information collected by the cell phone providers that he was there on site, you know, and then the letter itself. So, you know, there's a vast amount of evidence that would, that the prosecutors are going to use to get the conviction in this case. All right, Greg, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you.