Did you know that the man who camped out in the bushes for 12 hours just outside the fence of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on September 15 with a rifle pointed at the 6^th hole while Trump was playing the 5^th hole was just engaged in a harmless publicity stunt?

I didn’t, either!  This was news to me; in fact, it hadn’t even occurred to me that this might be the case.  But according to at least one news report, that’s what his lawyer, one member of a team of public defenders, claimed on Monday, when the man was formally arraigned on more charges.  Gosh, that’s such a relief!  To think that for the past couple of weeks, we’ve thought someone was seriously out to kill President Trump, but now we know it wasn’t that way at all.

You know that letter the man had written several months earlier, placed in a box and left with a friend, offering $150,000 to whoever could finish the job of assassinating Trump?  Why, that was apparently part of the stunt, too.

Recall that the letter said in part, “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you.  I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.  It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”  According to his lawyer, he was just kidding or something, in an attempt to get some publicity.  We’re not sure what he was trying to get publicity FOR --- maybe some new kind of energy bar or fruit drink that he was snacking on while waiting all those hours in the bushes --- but that’s all it was.

Don’t you feel better now, knowing he didn’t really mean to shoot Trump?

All this time, we’ve been thinking that the man stalked Trump for a month before The Big Day, when he set up what appeared to be a sniper’s nest under cover of darkness and waited for 12 hours for Trump to arrive, had serious bad intentions.  He had a real eye for detail, too:  For example, to make his publicity stunt look like a real assassination attempt, he had placed in his car a handwritten list of dates in August, September and October and venues where Trump had appeared or would be appearing.  Very realistic!

He’d left some things in his “lair” to made it look real as well, such as two bags hanging on the fence that contained ceramic plates designed to stop small arms fire.  He must’ve had those in case the Secret Service mistook a mere prankster for a real gunman and tried to shoot him with real bullets, which would have been terrible, right, considering this was just some silly stunt?  There was even an actual SKS rifle with a scope, which really made the whole thing look legit.  Agents have matched a fingerprint on the gun to this man, so we know he touched it, but, as his lawyer would no doubt say, this doesn’t mean he actually intended to SHOOT anybody.

And it’s all about intent, right?  (Also, as Jonathan Turley told us last week, it’s about the meaning of “attempt.”  Did this man actually “attempt” to shoot Trump, since he didn’t actually have him in his line of sight or pull the trigger, or did he merely “prepare?)

Prosecutors, who apparently have wildly misconstrued this man’s benign intentions, claimed he’d stalked Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate as well as the golf course for weeks and appeared to have been planning a getaway to Mexico.  To make his stunt look as authentic as possible, the man actually visited those places with his phone, because cell tower records show this.

The defendant faces five charges.  Last Monday, they charged him with possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.  This Monday, there were three more:  attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, assault on a federal officer, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime.  If found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison, which is tragic considering he was just involved in some dumb publicity stunt and would never really hurt President Trump.  The “not guilty” plea was accepted by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart.  It’s so sad that this innocent prankster --- again, according to his attorney --- had to stand before the judge in a prison jumpsuit and shackles.  What kind of a country is this?

He has requested a jury trial, preferably all Democrats.  Kidding about that last part, but his attorneys will no doubt try get as many Trump-haters as possible on the jury.  (This is Florida, so that’s far less likely to happen than in Manhattan.)  In fact, Trump-deranged court-watchers are already going berserk because the case has been assigned to none other than U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who, incredibly, seems to care about being fair to President Trump.  We can’t have that in “our democracy.”

The defendant spent a total of about three minutes inside the courtroom, as his attorneys declined to have the indictment read in court.  So we didn’t learn much from this, other than the fact that some lawyers will say absolutely ANYTHING to get their clients off.  Come to think of it, we already knew that, too.

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_d265acda-7f57-11ef-92a1-538ea168546d.html

https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-assassination-attempt-suspect-ryan-routh-pleads-not-guilty-more-serious-charges

RELATED:  After being targeted by would-be assassins twice in 64 days, President Trump alleged on Truth Social that his campaign has had to turn away thousands of people from his events because his requests for more Secret Service protection have not been fulfilled.  He said this is Democrats’ way of interfering in his White House bid.

“We need more Secret Service, and we need them NOW,” he wrote.  “It is ELECTION INTERFERENCE that we have to turn way thousands of people from arenas and venues because it is not being provided to us.”

He accuses them for using it for themselves, even though they “draw flies,” not people, to their events.  Gotta love it.

They’re also using Secret Service manpower to protect “people like the President of Iran, who is doing everything possible to kill me.”  Can’t argue with that.

DAILY WIRE has a good summary, with more quotes from Trump.  They mention that he’s planning to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first attempt on his life, this Saturday for a rally in which he’ll honor the life of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed there by a bullet intended for the former President, and celebrate the two other victims who were wounded.  Trump himself was wounded on his ear that day when a bullet whizzed by about a millimeter from his skull.  We now know that the Secret Service, which is led by the Department of Homeland Security under DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, had been warned of a serious, credible threat four days before the July 13 rally.  They’re alleged to have denied to Trump’s security detail the additional resources they’d requested, such as counter-snipers.  For TWO YEARS.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-dems-are-interfering-with-campaign-not-providing-enough-secret-service-agents

It’s probably not necessary to tell you to pray for President Trump as he makes another appearance in Butler.  Even you agnostics who might generally pray only when you’re on a Boeing airliner will be praying for him that day.