The man who built Donald Trump’s college army was passed out drunk on the floor of his luxury apartment in downtown Washington when his girlfriend of two months tried to wake him.
Ryan Fournier, the co-founder of Students for Trump who often boasted about his proximity to the president, came up swinging, prosecutors say.
He allegedly began punching her in the arms, grabbing her by the hair and knocking her to the ground before climbing on top of her and hitting her in the face at least twice.
At one point he allegedly took out a switchblade knife, holding it menacingly at his side.
‘You’re going to die tonight,’ Fournier, her boyfriend since March, allegedly told her.
That is how federal prosecutors describe the night of May 25 of this year in a court filing exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail, and it is why the 30-year-old MAGA activist has been locked in a DC jail without bond since July 2 awaiting trial.
The September 1 filing reveals for the first time that what began as a misdemeanor assault case is now a seven-count indictment with multiple felonies. It also revealed Fournier is accused of threatening to have a second woman deported or killed after she refused to lie to police for him, and that a former girlfriend has given prosecutors a photograph of him pointing a gun at her.
Fournier co-founded Students for Trump as a Campbell University freshman in 2015 and built it into a 350-chapter network. He has about a million followers on X.
A court document filed by the DC attorney’s office reveal Fournier is facing a seven-count felony indictment
Fournier co-founded Students for Trump as a Campbell University freshman in 2015 and built it into a 350-chapter network
Fournier worked closely alongside the late Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA leased the group’s web domains and social media accounts ahead of 2020 and Kirk briefly chaired it himself, before Fournier split from the organization in 2023.
He has pleaded not guilty to every charge and goes on trial October 8 before DC Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean.
Fournier’s attorney did not respond to a call for comment.
Jeanine Pirro’s US Attorney’s Office has given him until September 11 to take a plea deal it put on the table last month.
Police were called to his downtown DC apartment in the early hours of May 26 and arrested Fournier on misdemeanor charges of simple assault and attempted threats to do bodily harm.
According to an arrest affidavit, he shouted ‘I’ll kill everyone here’ and ‘Do you want me to crush your head with this lamp?’ as a witness watched him swing a handheld vacuum around the room.
He was released the same day on his own recognizance under a court order to stay away from the woman and have no contact with her.
That same day, according to the September 1 filing, she received two text messages from his phone in which he told her she had been the one hitting him.
Prosecutors provided a grainy image (right) showing a man they identify as Fournier with a gun raised toward an ex-girlfriend in 2020
Prosecutors say in the filing that was the start of a self-defense story Fournier then tried to recruit other people to tell.
On June 8, an associate of Fournier’s was at his apartment with him and three other people when he asked her to call police and report that his girlfriend had attacked him, the filing states, setting forth what allegedly happened during the incident.
He also asked her to post on social media calling the woman crazy and a prostitute, according to court documents. The unknown woman refused because she had not been there and did not want to give police false information.
Fournier then allegedly began yelling at another man in the room, telling him that unless he told police the girlfriend was the aggressor, Fournier would have him deported or ruin his career, even though that man had not been in the apartment during the assault either.
He then allegedly approached the woman with what she took to be an M-16 rifle, later determined to be a replica, threw it to her and said they wanted to take a picture of her holding it.
He told her that if she said anything negative about him he could use his political connections to have her deported, or he could have someone kill her, the filing court document claims.
She waited about 20 minutes before trying to leave, afraid he would hurt her if she went straight away. He then told her she could not go, he allegedly grabbed her wrists, pushed her onto a bed and pinned her with his knee in her midsection until she got free.
Four days later, Secret Service agents arrested Fournier outside his building for allegedly violating the stay-away order by texting the woman he is accused of assaulting, USA Today reported.
Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA leased the group’s web domains and social media accounts ahead of 2020 and Kirk briefly chaired it himself
Fournier has been working on Trump’s youth advocacy since 2016
His roommate, Jordan Daley, was cuffed alongside him and charged for allegedly posing as a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Fournier, and agents found the fake badge in the apartment. Daley’s formal plea has not yet been publicly disclosed.
On July 1, Fournier was indicted on two felony counts of threatening to kidnap or injure a person, which carry up to 20 years each, two felony counts of obstruction of justice, which carry up to 30 years each, one count of felony contempt for allegedly breaching the order barring contact with the woman he is accused of attacking, and two misdemeanor counts of simple assault, court records show.
A judge ordered him held without bond the next day, according to court filings.
Fournier has been behind bars at the DC jail in Southeast Washington for more than two months awaiting trial. Yet his personal X account, with roughly one million followers, was still posting as of Friday.
The most damaging material in the filing comes from a woman who dated Fournier for years before the relationship ended in 2025 and who told investigators he abused her repeatedly.
In 2020, prosecutors say in the filing, Fournier pointed a firearm at her.
‘She was able to take a photograph of the defendant pointing the firearm at her,’ the filing states.
Prosecutors then provide a grainy image reproduced beneath it showing a man prosecutors identify as Fournier with a gun raised toward the camera.
She described being struck in the face with a glass object in the spring of 2021, an injury that left a scar she still carries, and being hit in the head with a drinking glass about a year later because she tried to talk to him while he was on the phone.
That second attack cut Fournier’s own hand badly enough that he needed stitches, according to the filing.
Police were also called to a disturbance at a hotel in Florida where she said he had struck her with an object, leaving a large bruise on her head, the filing reads.
Fournier was arrested in November 2023 in Johnston County, North Carolina, and charged with assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon after he was accused of grabbing her arm and striking her in the forehead with a 9mm pistol.
Fournier was arrested in November 2023 in Johnston County, North Carolina, and charged with assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon
MAGA influencer Fournier, 30, pictured above alongside Dr. Oz
Fournier has denied any wrongdoing and was never convicted in that case. Prosecutors in North Carolina dropped the charges the following month with no public explanation.
The new filing says Fournier admitted to police during that investigation that he hit her in the head with the gun, but insisted he was defending himself from her.
Prosecutors want the jury to hear all of it, arguing that Fournier’s pattern whenever police get involved is to blame the victim and claim self-defense.
Judge McLean has not made a ruling on the request.
As for the switchblade, prosecutors acknowledge he never raised it at his girlfriend; he simply held it at his side after assaulting her and telling her she would die, the filing says.
