Donald Trump held a rally on Saturday at Coachella, which is located in Riverside County, southern California. The rally itself went well, according to the Trump campaign.

https://twitter.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1845647708213678494
It’s what happened before the rally even started that is now raising eyebrows, and a whole lot of questions. The Riverside County sheriff, Chad Bianco, announced via a press release that another assassination attempt had been stopped by the local checkpoints that were screening the attendees.

BREAKING: Man arrested outside Trump’s Southern California rally with multiple guns, fake VIP pass – KTLA pic.twitter.com/YR8BQE91jT

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 13, 2024

A Las Vegas man was arrested with a loaded weapon Saturday at a checkpoint near former President Trump’s California rally.

Trump was not in danger, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release on Sunday.

Deputies assigned to Trump’s Coachella rally stopped the driver of a black SUV, identified as Vem Miller, 49. He was found “to be illegally in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine,” according to the release. He was arrested without incident and charged with possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine, the sheriff’s department said.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco on Sunday told the Southern California News Group that another assassination attempt may have been stopped with the arrest.

The Justice Department said Sunday that its agencies were “aware of the arrest.”

“The U.S. Secret Service assesses that the incident did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger,” the statement reads. It notes an investigation is ongoing and no federal charges are yet involved.

Sadly, the idea that Donald Trump is a target for yet another potential assassination attempt is no longer a farfetched one. However, the suspect’s profile does not match that of the previous two potential assassins, as his social media reveals him to be a huge Trump fan. Nevertheless, Sheriff Bianco is insisting that this was another assassination attempt, and gave a press conference on Sunday to give details to the media.

Sheriff Bianco said the inside of the mans vehicle was in disarray, the license plate was fake and the vehicle was unregistered.

Upon further investigation, he said deputies discovered multiple passports and drivers licenses with different names, as well as a loaded handgun and a shotgun inside the SUV.

“If you’re asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt,” Bianco said.

Law enforcement believes the man could be connected to a group identifying as sovereign citizens.

Now, the sheriff makes it clear that it was the initial perimeter, where his deputies were staffed, that snagged Miller, and not the Secret Service’s secondary perimeter closer to the actual rally site. Now, the FBI and the Secret Service have apparently decided that this was not a “serious” threat.

The Secret Service believes it unlikely Miller was attempting to assassinate the president, and the FBI is not investigating it as such, sources told The Post, who noted Miller is a member of an anti-government far-right group and probably had the weapons for personal defense alone.

The Secret Service later said Trump wasn’t at risk during the rally.

“The US Secret Service assesses that the incident did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger,” the agency and the FBI said in a joint statement. “While no federal arrest has been made at this time, the investigation is ongoing.”

Miller reportedly asked for a lawyer after the FBI tried to interview him, and briefly told reporters claims that he was an assassin “complete bulls–t.”

Apparently, whomever wrote up the charges in Riverside County (which would not be the sheriff) also didn’t consider this a potential assassination, as Miller was released on $5,000 bond. And Miller himself insists that he is no assassin – though his reasoning for having the firearms is more than a little weird.

“I always travel around with my firearms in the back of my truck,” Miller told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.

He says he has never fired them, but he started keeping them with him when he started getting death threats.

“I’ve literally never even shot a gun in my life,” Miller said.

“I don’t know anything about guns. I am beyond a novice,” he continued.

Miller said he has been a 30-year member of the media and started work after graduating from high school. He has also worked on music videos and TV shows with major artists, and launched America Happens Network to combat “censorship” in the media. It was while doing this work that Miller told Fox he began receiving death threats, and purchased his firearms.

His connection to America Happens has been confirmed via his business partner on X, and he insists that none of his documents were forged.

When asked about all the fake ID’s and passports he had in his car, Miller claimed not one of them was a fake.

“None of those are fake,” he says of the passes and IDs that were in his possession.

Miller says he’s Armenian and has documents that use his full Armenian name and documents that don’t, because using those documents in some places around the world could get him killed, referring to campaigns over the centuries to murder Armenians.

He also addressed Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco alluding that he was part of the “sovereign citizens” movement.

“That’s a nonsensical statement,” he says of the “Sovereign Citizen” movement. Miller said he doesn’t support it and is not a part of it.

Let’s take Miller at his word for a moment, as his social media history does appear to vouch for his support of Donald Trump. The worst kind of gun owner is the person who carries guns around without being properly trained to use them. Period. And it doesn’t seem that he secured them properly, either – which was sure to get the attention of deputies at a security perimeter. So, while Miller could probably legally own them – in Nevada, where he is from – he admits to being a “novice” with firearms, and obviously violated local laws. You can disagree with the local laws all you like, but when you are a gun owner, you have to take responsibility for your weapons. Carrying around a gun for “protection” with no training is beyond stupid.

Next, the sheriff says the car was unregistered and had a fake license plate, which led them to make the assumption that Miller was part of the “Sovereign Citizens,” and that his documents were faked. It should be pretty simple for law enforcement to determine the car’s status and if the license plate was real, and Miller didn’t reference them in his interview, as he only insisted that his documents were genuine. That should be easy to figure out, as well as his full legal name. But the details from the interview do make it seem like the guy has a few screws loose, even as he denies any intent to harm Donald Trump.

So let’s assume that the FBI and Secret Service are correct in this instance, and that Vem Miller was not a “potential assassin.” Chad Bianco is the elected sheriff of Riverside County, and a known conservative with an eye on possibly running for higher office. Perhaps he is truly convinced that Vem Miller’s story, plus his firearms and unregistered vehicle, is just too fishy to take at face value, and really believes that he was a threat in the moment. Or, could the sheriff be looking to raise his public profile? He has made several assumptions publicly, which are not being backed up by the FBI or the Secret Service. But making these accusations in a press conference could also open him up to possible slander, if they can be proved untrue. Why take that risk if you have any doubts?

There is a whole lot about this case that is just not adding up and seems very, very odd. While the important thing is that there was apparently no real threat to Donald Trump, one has to question both the judgement of Vem Miller in trying to go through a security perimeter with firearms, and the assumptions made publicly by Sheriff Bianco. This could all be a comedy of errors – or we aren’t getting a full picture of just what happened yet.

Featured image: Sheriff Chad Bianco of Riverside County, California, official portrait, cropped, public domain