Taylor Taranto, the Seattle man who was arrested after he was allegedly found walking toward former President Barack Obama‘s home must remain in jail before trial, a federal magistrate judge said Wednesday, CNN reports. A former U.S. Attorney responding to news about Taranto, including a list of weapons and other items found in a van reportedly belonging to him that had been parked near the Obamas’ Washington, D.C. home, called the report “truly chilling.”
That list of items included “guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition,” according to the Associated Press.
NBC News has described him as a “conspiracy-minded Donald Trump supporter who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,” and says he was “arrested June 29 after prosecutors say he showed up in Obama’s neighborhood on the same day that former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was Obama’s home address.”
“Prosecutors detailed a litany of what they said were examples of Taranto’s erratic behavior before his arrest, including threatening statements about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and claims on his YouTube livestream that he intended to blow up the National Institute of Standards and Technology in suburban Maryland,” the AP adds.
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Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff on Thursday posted the “just released search inventory of J6er Taylor Taranto’s van outside Obama’s home, after he got Obama’s address from a Trump social media post.”
He writes it includes two pistols, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 13 magazines, a machete, and pills and powders:
In response, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, called it “truly chilling,” and appeared stunned at the lack of response from Republicans.
“If someone did this to Trump it would be a national emergency,” Vance wrote. “Instead, Republicans continue to ignore the obvious problem coming from inside of their own house. This is truly chilling & it happened because Trump posted President Obama’s address.”
Washington state’s Tri-City Herald has reports Taranto is a “former Franklin County Republican Party official,” a U.S. Navy veteran, and a former school board candidate.
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Taranto “was in the Tri-Cities as recently as April participating in a protest against a drag brunch at Emerald of Siam.”
Last week MSNBC reported prosecutors are “honing in on one particularly strange incident, where Taranto entered an elementary school, near Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin’s home…and projected a movie about January 6 on the wall.”
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Image: Screenshot via MSNBC