This is a breaking story, so the 24-hour rule applies; All reports within the first 24 hours are suspect. But we will strive to give you the most accurate information.
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Our sister site, PJ Media, has the news:
BREAKING: Third Trump Assassination Attempt Thwartedhttps://t.co/WGRsONOkY6
— PJ Media (@PJMedia_com) October 13, 2024
From Matt Margolis:
Authorities thwarted a possible third assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday when local law enforcement apprehended a man in possession of firearms and counterfeit entry passes outside his rally in Coachella Valley, California. The suspect was detained roughly a mile from the rally site, where police discovered he had a fraudulent entry pass, a loaded shotgun, a handgun, and a high-capacity magazine.
A significant source of his information about this alleged attempt is coming from the New York Post (as it was when news of the second attempt broke):
Armed man arrested outside Trump’s Coachella rally — and sheriff says it was possible third assassination attempt https://t.co/ep3W5wxnLQ pic.twitter.com/Fi2f8xICZa
— New York Post (@nypost) October 13, 2024
From the article:
‘We probably stopped another assassination attempt,’ Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, according to Riverside Press-Enterprise.
However, the FBI does not believe this was an assassination attempt, and the former president’s life was never in danger, law enforcement sources told The Post.
We do think that it is fair to think this man planned on some kind of violence, but if he hoped to actually kill Trump, a shotgun and handgun are weird choices for weapons to use for that purpose. Then again, shotgun assassinations are not unknown: Shinzo Abe was murdered using a handmade one. But as we said at the top, this is a breaking news event, so frankly early reports could be 100% wrong.
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Margolis also links to the Riverside Press-Enterprise for even more details:
Trump assassination attempt at Coachella Valley rally thwarted when man with weapons arrested, Riverside sheriff says https://t.co/5yxUBMFzD0
— Michele Blood (@BloodBrief) October 13, 2024
From the article:
[Vem] Miller is a registered Republican who holds a master’s degree from UCLA, and who ran for state assembly in Nevada in 2022.
Bianco said Miller considers himself a so-called sovereign citizen, a group of people who do not believe they are subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them.
And allegedly his possession of those weapons was illegal:
He was found to be in illegal possession of a shotgun, loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
But here’s the truly messed up part:
He was released Saturday on $5,000 bail and is scheduled to appear at the Indio Larson Justice Center on Jan. 2, 2025, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department inmate database.
That’s right, he was given extremely low bail and released … after allegedly attempting to assassinate a former president and leading current candidate for the presidency. The mind boggles.
And even though we are not 100% convinced this is an assassination attempt just yet, we think there is more than enough cause to hold him for a while as authorities investigate.
We will note that there is no information on whether or not any conditions were set for that bail. Maybe he is still required to have an ankle monitor, although that doesn’t really stop him from leaving his home and the other places he is allowed to go, it just warns law enforcement when he does.
Also, we haven’t been able to verify this, but many people are saying the second video is made by the alleged, would-be assassin:
Heavily armed man with fake press and VIP passes was arrested outside Trump’s rally at Coachella valley in what's being described as a third assassination attempt! pic.twitter.com/pe1EDKUt76
— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) October 13, 2024
Chilling if true, but we can’t verify it.
And just as we were finishing up this piece, allegedly the Trump campaign is not calling this an assassination attempt:
NEW: Sources close to the Trump campaign tell @FoxNews there was no assassination attempt against Trump at his Coachella, CA rally yesterday. We’re told a man with a gun was arrested at the perimeter of the event without incident.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 13, 2024
Honestly, anonymous sourcing on this issue doesn’t impress us much, especially because we don’t even know if they have any inside information about this incident. Why can’t these people just speak on the record?
We will add that we remember that when the news broke of the second assassination attempt, early reports made it sound like it might have been merely a shootout between two private citizens and not an assassination attempt either. Later, we found out that suggestion was 100% wrong: It was an assassination attempt and the shooting was a Secret Service agent responding to a physical threat from the would-be assassin. The point in that trip down memory lane is to point out that early reports can get things badly wrong, hence why we consider all early reports suspect on all sides.
Thus, the best we can say right now is tune in, and as the disclaimer at the beginning of the piece suggests, things are likely to be much clearer in the next twenty-four hours. We have little doubt that more information will come out.
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