A 38-year-old man from Downey, California was detained at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes on Sunday afternoon — around 3:30 PM Pacific — with a 16-round magazine loaded with hollow-point ammunition stuffed in his pants pocket. President Trump was scheduled to arrive shortly after.
This is the third time an armed individual has been caught near the president at one of his golf properties. Third time.
Jeanine John Taele had been photographing and recording security preparations for the president's visit when plainclothes federal agents flagged him and Lomita Sheriff's Station deputies moved in. What they found on Taele was alarming enough. What they found after was worse.
A search of Taele's vehicle turned up a loaded pistol with a round already chambered and another magazine filled with hollow-point ammunition. Then investigators got a warrant for his home.
Inside they recovered an illegally modified AR-platform rifle, a 1911 .45-caliber pistol, an AR-platform upper receiver, body armor, high-capacity magazines, bulk pistol and rifle ammunition, two radio signal devices, and multiple notebooks containing what authorities described as "concerning statements." That's not a gun collection. That's a kit.
Taele was already under investigation by the El Segundo Police Department for robbery. He now faces charges of carrying a concealed firearm and possessing prohibited ammunition.
The Secret Service has had to deal with armed threats at Trump's golf courses before — including one where shots were actually fired. Each incident exposes the same uncomfortable reality: the sitting president of the United States faces a threat environment that would dominate the national conversation if the partisan math were different.