Left: Ryan Routh (Law&Crime). Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: President-elect Donald Trump arrives to speak at a meeting of the House GOP conference, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
Donald Trump assassination suspect Ryan Routh, who is accused of attempting to shoot the president last year at one of his golf courses, scored a minor court win over the Justice Department on Friday while representing himself in his criminal case — with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permitting an expert witness to testify on his behalf against claims about his gun and alleged sniper “hide.”
Routh, 59, is charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and multiple firearm violations. While still being represented by counsel, Routh disclosed in March that Michael McClay, a former sniper in the U.S. Marines whose experience includes serving as a chief instructor at the USMC Scout Sniper School, would “testify from his weapons and tactical expertise and training” regarding Routh”s alleged activities and positioning.
The DOJ filed a motion in late June to exclude McClay’s testimony and arguments were heard at a July 25 hearing. After reviewing the parties’ arguments and the competing authorities, Cannon — a Trump appointee — ruled against the government’s “broad request” to exclude McClay as a witness.
“As it stands, McClay proposes to testify as an expert on matters that sufficiently align with the topics identified by the United States’ expert disclosures, albeit with some differences,” wrote Cannon in an eight-page order on Friday.
She noted how Nicholas Schnelle, an FBI special agent with weapons and tactics expertise, planned to provide testimony for the DOJ regarding Routh’s “observation point” and “final firing point” that day on the golf course, as well as “why a vantage point is desirable for a particular target” and how Routh’s position was supposedly a good sniper “hide.” McClay is being called as a witness by Routh to challenge those assertions.
“McClay counters with testimony regarding, among other things, defendant’s ‘activities and positioning,’ ‘the observation point, including its vantage point,’ and ‘positioning of potential target,'” Cannon explained. “Likewise, as discussed at the hearing, the United States plans to offer testimony that the rifle was capable of firing multiple rounds, while McClay would say that, in his test, it fired twice but jammed after each of those successful shots.”
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
Cannon pointed to the “significant overlap” in her reasoning for allowing McClay to testify. She said the court was “not in a position to declare” that McClay’s proposed testimony is “wholly irrelevant and warranting full exclusion.” Barring him from testifying, according to Cannon, is ultimately not needed when a judge can sustain any objections the government has to particular questions that are likely to elicit inadmissible evidence.
“To the extent the United States determines that additional expert disclosures are warranted in light of this order, the court authorizes a supplemental disclosure by the United States — limited to issues implicated by McClay’s disclosures — due to pro se defendant and standby counsel on or before August 18, 2025,” Cannon concluded.
According to federal prosecutors, McClay’s account of his live-fire test is “irrelevant and unhelpful,” and they claim the same goes for his opinion that the rifle was not the “optimal precision sniper tool.” As for the rest of McClay’s disclosures, Cannon noted how the government believes “they do not state actual opinions and do not otherwise provide a basis for McClay to testify,” per her order.
Routh rejected these arguments and emphasized what he described as a “lack of basic fairness” in permitting a government expert to testify on a topic while excluding McClay’s proposed testimony on that same topic and deeming it “irrelevant.” McClay plans to testify that Routh allegedly “loaded the magazine into the rifle, placed the weapon onto fire (position), and pulled the trigger” on the day of the alleged assassination attempt, per Routh’s disclosure.
“The rifle expelled the projectile into the berm and the bolt extracted the spent casing,” the filing says, citing McClay’s testimony. “As the bolt went forward to cycle the second round from the magazine, the cartridge misfed and jammed at the throat of the chamber.”
McClay will further testify that Routh allegedly “repeated the process, with the same result — a successful fire and then a jam on the second attempt to fire the weapon.”
Routh is scheduled to go before a jury in September after pleading not guilty to his charges. He asked Cannon last month if he could dump his public defenders and represent himself, to which she obliged, sparking fears that his trial would “become a circus,” according to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors have said they expect the Florida man to present statements from self-published “books” and other writings of his, as well as hearsay statements.
“It is the defendant’s evidence that is most likely to upend this trial by injecting irrelevant and prejudicial facts unrelated to the actual charges,” the DOJ blasted last month.
