A California man, Jeanine John Taele, 38, was arrested at President Donald Trump’s Los Angeles-area golf course while pretending to be part of the security detail preparing for Trump’s visit. Taele was due in court on a federal weapons charge.

Incident Details

Taele was first seen on the property Friday, walking throughout the course wearing an earpiece and taking photos and videos of federal agents’ activities as they conducted a security assessment. He drove away but then returned to the course Sunday, approaching federal agents and claiming he was employed by the State Department and was there for a security detail.

Taele said he had a loaded semi-automatic rifle in his vehicle and was arrested after it was searched. Authorities also found a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket. A search of his pickup truck in the club parking lot turned up a loaded 9mm pistol, binoculars, and a badge that read ‘security protection agent’.

A search of his home in the nearby city of Downey on Monday found a rifle and other firearms, magazines, and ammunition, body armor, and notebooks with ‘concerning statements’. No details about the statements were released.

Reaction

‘Mr. Taele’s troubling behavior at the President’s public golf course merely days before the President was expected to arrive raised serious red flags for law enforcement,’ said Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.

In brief remarks about Taele’s arrest, Trump said ‘only consequential presidents’ are targeted, ‘and I am definitely consequential,’ which he said brought him ‘a little solace’.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.