The man who was arrested for a suspected assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Club on Sunday had to have studied the course to know exactly where to get access and a clear line of sight, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told Newsmax.
Giuliani, who said he had played Trump International in West Palm Beach, Florida, including with the former president, between 50 and 60 times previously, said there aren’t many places an average person could access the course.
“He had to have spent time studying the golf course because if I showed you pictures of it, I could show you that there were relatively few other places that this could happen,” Giuliani said on Newsmax’s special event coverage. “I mean, what you have up there, you can see that the shrubbery is kind of very, very thin, right? Most of it is tremendous. I mean, it’s high, it’s very thick.”
Trump was playing golf at Trump International early Sunday afternoon when at least one Secret Service agent, surveilling the holes ahead of Trump’s playing party, noticed a rifle barrel protruding from a hedged area along the side of the course.
Agents engaged the would-be gunman, firing several shots and forcing him to flee. A suspect was arrested on Interstate 95 in neighboring Martin County and is being held.
“I know these two holes,” Giuliani said referring to the fifth and sixth on the par-72, 7,100-yard layout.
The par-3 No. 5 runs parallel to a canal before the course turns 90 degrees south and the fairway to the 322-yard, par-4 No. 6 adjoins Congress Avenue, a major thoroughfare in South Florida. A chain-link fence runs the length of the course on Congress.
“The minute you told me that happened to the golf course, I knew exactly where the shooter would do it, because this is the place where you would get the best ability to get at him from outside the golf course between five and six, and the car was parked on south, I think it’s South Congress Street or Congress Avenue,” Giuliani said.