Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputies arrested an armed California man over the weekend who was seen surveilling Donald Trump’s golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, days before the president was set to arrive there for an event with the Republican National Committee (RNC).
Plainclothes federal agents reported Jeanine John Taele, 38, as a “suspicious individual”, after they observed him on Sunday taking photographs and videos of the golf grounds, located in a coastal town south of Los Angeles, according to county officials.
After the sheriff’s deputies detained Taele, they found a loaded magazine in his pocket and a loaded pistol in his car. Investigators obtained a search warrant for Taele’s home in Downey, citing “the potential security implications”, and recovered a trove of weapons from the residence including a .45-caliber pistol, body armor, an illegally modified AR-type pistol, among others, officials said.
In Taele’s house, law enforcement officers also found “multiple notebooks containing concerning statements”. The nature of the remarks remains unclear.
Taele has been arrested for carrying a concealed firearm and possession of prohibited ammunition. Investigators have put the case before the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office to determine if and what charges will be filed.
Trump is expected to land in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening. A White House spokesperson reportedly described the trip as an opportunity for the president to draw contrast between his administration’s “commonsense agenda” and the “radical policies” of Democratic leaders such as the California governor, Gavin Newsom, with whom he has verbally sparred online.
Regarding Taele’s arrest, the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department said on Tuesday they had identified no credible threat to its communities.
Trump has been the target of violence in the past.
In April, a gunman with alleged grievances against the Trump administration, sprinted through a security checkpoint at the White House correspondents’s association dinner, where the president was in attendance, before being apprehended by Secret Service agents.
In July 2024, a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally where Trump was speaking then as a presidential nominee. A bullet grazed his ear.
Ryan Routh was recently sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of attempting to assassinate Trump on a Florida golf course in September 2024. Prosecutors said Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the then Republican presidential candidate played golf at his West Palm Beach country club.
