A man found in possession of loaded firearms, multiple passports and a fake licence plate was arrested on Saturday, October 12th at a security checkpoint near Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s rally in California. Although the local sheriff said his department thwarted an assassination attempt on the former president, the suspect rejected the claims, saying he is a Trump supporter.
The 49-year-old Nevada man, Vem Miller, was driving an unregistered black SUV that was stopped by deputies assigned to the rally in Coachella, east of Los Angeles, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
Miller was trying to enter the rally with a fake press pass. He made it past an outer security boundary and was stopped at an inner perimeter patrolled by the sheriff’s department. The police noticed his car was unregistered, they searched the vehicle and discovered a cache of fake passports and driver’s licences, along with a shotgun, a loaded handgun and a high-capacity magazine.
The man was arrested on suspicion of possessing a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine. He was released on a $5,000 bail, and will have to appear in court in January.
“I truly do believe that we prevented another assassination attempt,” Sheriff Chad Bianco said, referring to two previous attempts on Trump in recent months. In July, a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. In September, a man was charged with trying to assassinate Trump after Secret Service agents discovered him hiding with a rifle near Trump’s Palm Beach golf course.
Saturday’s incident did not impact the safety of Trump or attendees of the event. While acknowledging that there was
absolutely no way that any of us are going to truly know what was in [the suspect’s] head. … If you’re asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt.
However, the Secret Service believes it is unlikely Vem Miller intended to assassinate the president, and the FBI is not investigating it as such.
Miller himself, speaking to Fox News, denied the accusation, saying “I always travel around with my firearms in the back of my truck.” He said he had worked 30 years in media, and launched his America Happens Network to combat censorship in the media. It was while doing such work that he began receiving death threats, and purchased his firearms, he said.
Miller claims he is a Trump supporter, saying:
This is a man that I deeply admire, because I was a closet individual in terms of my beliefs, because I worked in Hollywood. As my politics started to change, I realised that Hollywood is a homogenous community.
He called Trump a “visual example of freedom of speech,” and said the former president was “brave,” and that he admires him for going after the media.
He said none of the passes and IDs found in his possession were fake, adding that because of his Armenian background, he has documents that use his full Armenian name and documents that don’t.
The Trump campaign thanked law enforcement for securing the rally site and helping ensure the safety of its candidate, but a source close to the campaign also told Fox News that they do not believe this was an assassination attempt on Trump.
