The FBI says former President Donald Trump was the target of "what appears to be an attempted assassination" at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.It's been just nine weeks since the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life.The former president says he's safe and well. A man suspected in an apparent assassination attempt targeting Trump was charged with federal gun crimes.Video below: Bodycam video shows Ryan Routh's apprehensionThe charges he facesRouth faces charges of possessing a firearm despite being a convicted felon and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.Routh appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach, where he answered perfunctory questions about his work status and income. Shackled and wearing a blue jumpsuit, he smiled as he spoke with a public defender and reviewed documents ahead of his initial appearance. The lawyer declined to comment after the court appearance.His backgroundThe man in custody was identified as Ryan Routh. Records show Routh, 58, lived in North Carolina for most of his life. In 2018, he moved to Hawaii, where he works as a self-employed affordable housing builder. In 2020, he made a social media post backing Trump's reelection, but in more recent years, his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris. Public records in North Carolina Routh was registered as an "unaffiliated" voter without a party in 2012. He voted in that state’s Democratic primary in March of this year, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.Routh has contributed more than $100 to ActBlue, which processes donations for Democrats, federal campaign finance records show.Routh tried to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in Ukraine, and spent several months in the country, according to an interview with The New York Times last year. How he was arrestedU.S. Secret Service agents posted a few holes up from where Trump was playing noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines the course, roughly 400 yards away.An agent fired, and the gunman dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.Routh was later taken into custody in a neighboring county.He had a calm, flat demeanor and showed little emotion when he was stopped and didn't question why he was pulled over, according Martin County Sheriff William Snyder.“He never asked, ‘what is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said. According to court documents released on Monday, the man suspected in an apparent assassination attempt targeting Trump camped outside a golf course with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours before a Secret Service agent confronted him and opened fire.His social media presenceRouth went on social media to weigh in on politics and current events, at times criticizing the former president.He posted comments on an X account linked to him referencing the assassination attempt on Trump at a July rally in Pennsylvania, tagging President 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 people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris. Routh then used his personal Facebook account last year to encourage foreigners to fight in the war. He tried to enlist Afghan conscripts in a flurry of posts, beginning in October 2023, presenting himself as an off-the-books liaison for the Ukrainian government.“Afghan Soldiers- Ukraine is somewhat interested in 3000 soldiers, so I need every soldier that has a passport to send me a copy of their passport to send to Ukraine,” he wrote in one such post, 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 houses; a story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser said he donated a structure for homeless people.“Work has never been about money rather building frameworks for people to thrive and succeed,” Routh wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Being mechanically minded I enjoy ideas and invention and creative projects with artistic flare.”The company’s website says it uses standard economical, fast and efficient construction techniques and materials to “produce solutions to our own problems right here on the island.”His criminal record Records from North Carolina, dating back a couple of decades, also show that he had scrapes with the law.In 2002, Routh was arrested after he was pulled over by police and allegedly put his hand on a firearm before barricading himself in a business, according to a Greensboro News & Record article that year that cited police. A law enforcement confirmed the arrest to CNN on Sunday.Public records reveal several court cases involving Routh since the 1990s.State and federal authorities have repeatedly accused him of failing to pay his taxes on time. For example, he faced a federal tax lien in 2008 of about $32,000, according to court records.In 1998, the state alleged he committed an offense related to a “worthless check,” though that case was dismissed.Separately, judges have ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs in various civil suits.His son's responseRouth’s eldest son, Oran, told CNN via text that Routh was “a loving and caring father, and honest hardworking man.”The son wrote, “I don’t know what’s happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent.”