Man Arrested Near Obama's Home Threatened to Blow Up Government Facility, Feds Report
The man, 37, was also part of the January 6, 2021 raids at the Nation’s Capitol.
A man who was wanted on charges related to the January 6, 2021, United States Capitol Building Riots was arrested near the home of former President Barack Obama on June 29 – and according to officials, he was armed. A new court filing reveals that 37-year-old Taylor Taranto from Washington state was spotted by Secret Service agents blocks away from Obama's Washington DC home with weapons and ammunition. Here is what you need to know about the arrest.
According to court documents, Taranto, who was wanted on an arrest warrant related to his alleged actions during the January 2021 raid, was arrested in the Kalorama neighborhood after being spotted just a few blocks away. He has been in custody ever since.
Prosecutors made their case to Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui on Wednesday and Thursday to keep Taranto behind bars until his trial, arguing that case law prevents him from considering factors beyond whether he poses a flight risk when deciding whether to release him.
However, Faruquii announced he was delaying on ruling until officials in Washington state get a plan in place for his pretrial release and custodianship, in case he is released. July 12 will be the next hearing.
According to the government, Taranto was streaming live on his public YouTube channel on June 28. He said he was heading to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, an agency within the Commerce Department headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with a detonator.
"He made several statements indicating that he intended to blow up his vehicle at NIST, including a statement that he had a detonator, that he was on a 'one way mission,' and that the vehicle was self-driving so he would not have to be anywhere near it when it 'went off,'" prosecutors alleged.
They added that there is a nuclear reactor on the agency's 579-acre campus, which prompted the FBI to search for Taranto and have an arrest warrant issued for charges stemming from January 6. After the Capitol raid, the bureau had already been "monitoring [his] online activities."
He continued streaming the next day, saying he was driving on a road in the Obamas' neighborhood. He stopped and got out of the gan, saying he was looking for "entrance points," that he had "control" of the block and "had them surrounded" and that he was going to find a way to the "tunnels underneath their houses," according to prosecutors. He was arrested and
investigators discovered "hundreds of rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition and two firearms inside," prosecutors said, as well as a machete.
