From the AP's 6-30-23 report entitled "Jan. 6 Suspect Arrested Near Obama’s Washington Home Had Guns, Machete in His Van, Feds Say":
A man arrested near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home on charges in the U.S. Capitol riot had two guns, 400 rounds of ammunition as well as a machete in his van, a federal prosecutor said Friday.
Taylor Taranto, 37, was arrested Thursday after being spotted a few blocks from the former president’s home and chased by U.S. Secret Service agents. Court documents unsealed Friday show Taranto is charged with four misdemeanors related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, including disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
The Justice Department, during a hearing in Washington’s federal court, disclosed the details about the weapons found in the van that the man appeared to be living in, NBC News reported. Taranto was ordered to remain behind bars pending a detention hearing scheduled for next Wednesday [...].
After attending then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, Taranto joined rioters on the Upper West Terrace, where he picked up and threw pieces of metal scaffolding, according to court papers.
Taranto entered the Capitol building and was near another rioter, Ashli Babbitt, when a police officer shot and killed her as she climbed through a glass window leading to the House chambers, the FBI said in a court filing. Before he left the building, Taranto and other rioters scuffled with police officers, the filing says.
To read the entire report, click HERE.
From Ryan J. Reilly's 8-24-21 HUFFPOST article entitled "Online Sleuths Identify Second Jan. 6 Rioter Seen Battling DC Cop Who Died By Suicide":
By the early morning of Aug. 14, the identification had been confirmed. A facial recognition search had pulled up images of a man on the website of the Franklin County Republicans in Washington state. There were multiple images of a man soon identified as Taylor Taranto of Pasco, Washington.In two images, Taranto was posing with a cardboard cutout of former President Donald Trump.
“When I saw him grinning with the Trump cutout, that’s when I figured we probably had a good lead,” another sleuth who helped identify the man told HuffPost.
Taranto is listed as webmaster of the Franklin County Republicans, where a biography says he spent six years in the U.S. Navy and is a “computational biophysicist” who enjoys “making memes and homeschooling my children” when he’s not “helping the President take down the deep state.” A call to a phone number associated with Taranto was not returned. The chairman of the group indicated to HuffPost that he spoke with Taranto about what happened on Jan. 6.
“He said he did witness a bunch of buses coming in posing as Trump supporters who orchestrated this whole damn thing,” Clint Didier, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Executive Committee, told HuffPost in a phone interview. “They had buses full of these ‘antifa’ people posing as being Donald Trump supporters.” (Didier, a farmer, ended the call shortly after by explaining that he had to go because he was riding a tractor.)
Later, Didier, who is also a Franklin County Commissioner and former player for what is now known as the Washington Football Team, said he didn’t recall if it was Taranto or someone else who told him about the super-secret undercover antifa plot. But he did call Taranto “a veteran” and “a fine man” who “has some issues with PTSD.”
Taranto’s identification wasn’t definitive until online investigators found evidence of Taranto admitting he was in the Capitol that day. More than six months after the Capitol attack, Taranto seemed confused that he hadn’t yet been arrested for his conduct [emphasis added--RG]. On July 15, a Facebook account that Taranto evidently shares with his wife posted a selfie video that appeared to be filmed in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Soooo... we’re in the Capitol building, the legislative building, we just stormed it,” Taranto says in the video. The caption on the Facebook post reads: “I’m only sharing this so someone will report me to the feds and we can get this party rolling!”
To read the entire article, click HERE.
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