Trump assassination suspect floats bizarre prisoner swap in letter to judge, asks why he can’t be executed

Ryan Routh, the accused would-be assassin of President Donald Trump, has written an unusual letter to the judge asking why the death penalty isn’t on the table — and proposing that he be included in a prisoner swap with U.S. adversaries, even suggesting he be sent to freeze in Siberia in exchange for a Ukrainian soldier.

Routh, who also said that he now wants to represent himself at trial, makes the outlandish requests in a letter to U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon who is overseeing the federal criminal case against him. Routh is charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump, assaulting a federal officer and multiple firearms violations for the Sept. 15 incident in Florida, the second attempted assassination plot against Trump in a matter of months.

“Why is the death penalty not allowed? At nearly 60, a life of nothingness without love — what is the point? Why is it not all or nothing?” Routh wrote in the letter on the case docket.