CNN
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A 58-year-old man arrested in Florida on Sunday in connection with the suspected assassination attempt on Donald Trump is a self-employed affordable housing builder in Hawaii. He has taken to social media to express his views on politics and current events, occasionally criticizing the former president.

Ryan Wesley Routh, who authorities suspect planned to attack the former president while he was playing a round of golf, posted comments on an X account linked to him referencing the attempted assassination of Trump at a July rally in Pennsylvania.

Routh tagged Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in separate posts, encouraging them to visit those injured at the rally.

“You and Biden should visit the injured in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered firefighter. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a message to Harris.

In an April X post, tagging President Biden’s presidential account, he wrote that Biden’s campaign should be called “something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trumps should be MASA… make Americans slave masters again. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we can’t lose.”

In June 2020, Routh appeared to say that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but had since retracted his support for the former president: “While you were my choice in 2016, I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all sorely disappointed and it appears you are getting worse and worse,” he wrote. “I will be glad when you are gone.”

Routh also has ties to North Carolina, where public records show he registered as an “independent” voter with no party affiliation in 2012. He voted in that state’s Democratic primary in March of this year, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Federal campaign finance records show that Routh has donated more than $100 to ActBlue, an organization that processes donations for Democrats.

Routh expressed strong support for Ukraine — in dozens of posts on X in 2022, saying he was prepared to die in battle and that “we must level the Kremlin.”

“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER, FIGHT AND DIE… Can I be the example that we must win,” Routh said in a March 2022 X post.

Routh used his personal Facebook account last year to encourage foreigners to fight in the war, attempting to recruit Afghan conscripts in a flurry of messages beginning in October 2023, presenting himself as an off-the-books liaison to the Ukrainian government.

“Afghan soldiers – Ukraine is somewhat interested in 3,000 soldiers, so I need a copy of each soldier who has a passport to send to Ukraine,” he wrote in one of those messages, which was published in English and Pashto.

Routh’s LinkedIn page says he started a company in 2018 called Camp Box Honolulu, which builds storage units and tiny homes. A story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser says he donated a structure for the homeless.

“Work has never been about money, but about building frameworks in which people can thrive and succeed,” Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Being mechanically inclined, I enjoy ideas and inventions and creative projects with artistic flair.”

The company’s website states that it uses standard economical, fast and efficient construction techniques and materials to “produce solutions to our own problems, here on the island.”

A Hawaiian man who gave Routh a bad review on Facebook told CNN he was concerned about Routh’s response to the criticism. Saili Levi, a vanilla company owner, said he paid Routh $3,800 up front to build a trailer for his business, but when Levi came to Routh’s shop to review his work, it was sloppy.

Levi said that when he asked Routh via email to improve the work, Routh yelled at him.

“He just started ranting about, you know, ‘You think you’re better than me because you have money?'” Levi said, adding that Routh had also said he had gone to Ukraine to fight Russia. “I decided maybe I should just let it go, for the good of my family.”

Documents from North Carolina dating back several decades also show he had run-ins with the law.

In 2002, Routh was arrested after being pulled over by police and allegedly putting his hand on a gun before barricading himself inside a business, according to a Greensboro News & Record article that year that cited police. A law enforcement agency confirmed the arrest to CNN on Sunday.

Public records show that Routh has faced several lawsuits since the 1990s.

State and federal authorities have repeatedly accused him of failing to pay his taxes on time, including a 2008 federal tax demand for about $32,000, according to court records.

In 1998, the state alleged he committed a crime involving a “worthless check,” but that case was dismissed.

In addition, judges have ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs in various civil lawsuits.

Routh’s eldest son, Oran, told CNN via text message that Routh was “a loving and caring father, and an honest, hardworking man.”

The son wrote: “I don’t know what happened in Florida, and I hope things are just being blown out of proportion because from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like the man I know would do anything crazy, let alone violent.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.