Threats and assassination attempts are part of the office that Donald Trump once held and that he is seeking again

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump claimed Sunday, after an alleged assassination attempt on him, that Democrats' exaggerated rhetoric was to blame for the threat against him.

Records show that threats are associated with the office he once held and now seeks to regain, and they are far more common than is generally known.

A study by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) shows that the federal government has prosecuted 1,444 cases of threats against presidents or others in their line of succession since 1986, when Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

The highest number of prosecutions in a single year was in 1987 during the Reagan years, when there were 73. TRAC data shows that 72 cases were initiated in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration. The Bush administration also had the highest number of cases in its eight-year term with 383, a time of heightened tensions during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors initiated 343 cases when Bill Clinton was president and 213 during former President Barack Obama's two terms. There were 68 cases in Trump's first term. Reagan had 200 cases in the last three years of his presidency, and 213 cases were initiated during George HW Bush's one term.

The number of convictions was highest during the administrations of George W. Bush and Clinton.

TRAC is a widely used database research tool developed in the 1980s by the Newhouse School and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and created with government data obtained under federal public access to government records laws and through legal proceedings.

As a former president and presidential candidate, Trump falls into numerous categories. There are laws that regulate threats or attacks against both.

So far, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, has been charged with felony weapons charges and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, despite a previous conviction. Additional charges are possible.

Authorities were still investigating Routh's possible motive and movements in the days and weeks leading up to Sunday when a Secret Service agent assigned to Trump's security detail spotted a firearm emerging from bushes on the West Palm Beach golf course where Trump was playing. The agent fired and Routh fled in an SUV, leaving behind a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS rifle with a scope and a plastic bag of groceries.

The Trump assassination attempt is unique because he is a former president who was trying to regain office and has now experienced two assassination attempts. But he is not the only former president to have survived an assassination attempt while trying to regain office. Teddy Roosevelt was a former president running for office in 1912 when he was shot in the chest during his campaign in Milwaukee.

“This is not unprecedented. People tend to forget that violence has been around in the United States for a long time,” said David Head, a historian at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

There were a number of notable incidents not included in the TRAC data. Reagan was seriously injured in 1982, and then-President Gerald Ford was the subject of two assassination attempts within 17 days in 1975. George W. Bush was in Tbilisi, Georgia, with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in 2005 when someone rolled a hand grenade into the room that failed to explode.

Clinton was in the White House on October 29, 1994, when Francisco Martin Duran, then 26, opened fire outside, firing about 20 shots into the building. No one was injured, but Duran was sentenced to 40 years in prison for attempting to murder the president. According to the Bureau of Prisons website, he is in a federal prison in Virginia and will not be eligible for release until 2029.

Earlier this year, a New Hampshire man accused of threatening Republican candidates was found dead while a jury was deliberating his case.

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.