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FILE – The entrance to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., is seen in this photo, July 2, 2020.<\/p>\n
John Antczak\/AP Photo\/John Antczak<\/p>\n
FILE – A general view of Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Friday, Sept. 13, 2024.<\/p>\n
Jae C. Hong\/AP Photo\/Jae C. Hong<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A California man who was arrested at President Donald Trump\u2019s Los Angeles-area golf course was pretending to be part of the security detail preparing for Trump\u2019s visit and had a stash of illegal weapons in his car and home, authorities said.<\/p>\n
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Jeanine John Taele, 38, was due in court Wednesday on a federal weapons charge but the hearing was cancelled. He is being held at a downtown LA jail on state charges, according to booking records and not yet in federal custody, said a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Taele was arrested Sunday at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, two days before Trump visited for a fundraising dinner.<\/p>\n
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Taele was first seen on the property Friday, walking throughout the course wearing an earpiece and taking photos and videos of federal agents’ activities as they conducted a security assessment, according to a federal criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Taele drove away but then returned to the course Sunday. He approached federal agents and said he was employed by the State Department and was there for a security detail. Taele said he had a loaded weapon in his vehicle and was arrested after it was searched, according to federal officials. Authorities also found a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket.<\/p>\n
He already appeared in court on state weapons charges and a second-degree robbery charge for an unrelated incident.<\/p>\n
Taele is charged federally with possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle that was found at this home, authorities said. The complaint alleges the firearm is an illegally modified AR-style rifle with a barrel that was cut down to 10 inches (25 centimeters) from 14 inches (35 centimeters).<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said a search of his pickup truck in the club parking lot turned up a loaded 9mm pistol, binoculars and a badge that read \u201csecurity protection agent,” according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n
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Law enforcement searched his home in the nearby city of Downey on Monday and found a rifle and other firearms, magazines and ammunition, body armor and notebooks with \u201cconcerning statements,” federal authorities said. No details about the statements were released.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Taele\u2019s troubling behavior at the President\u2019s public golf course merely days before the President was expected to arrive raised serious red flags for law enforcement,\u201d Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI\u2019s Los Angeles office, said in a statement. \u201cThere is no room for error, particularly in light of previous attempts on President Trump\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In brief remarks about Taele’s arrest to Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said \u201conly consequential presidents\u201d are targeted, \u201cand I am definitely consequential,” which he said brought him \u201ca little solace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taele was a corporal in the U.S. Marines who was deployed to Iraq in 2008 and Afghanistan in 2010 and worked as a warehouse clerk, according to the U.S. Marine Corps. He earned numerous commendations, including an award for good conduct, during his service from 2008 to 2016.<\/p>\n
State records show Taele is a licensed security guard, with his most recent license issued in February of this year and expiring in 2028. Records also show several cancelled or suspended permits to carry a firearm as a security guard. State officials did not immediately respond to a request for more details about those permits.<\/p>\n
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The Los Angeles County public defender’s office, which is representing Taele in the state criminal case, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Wednesday. Family members could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
Last year a jury found a man guilty of trying to assassinate Trump at the president\u2019s Florida country club. And while a candidate in 2024, Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a shooter on a roof at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – The entrance to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles, in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., is seen…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[165,166,217,1070,208,3412,3413,3408,3411,3410,3409,5544,3414,8998],"class_list":["post-17252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-golf","tag-donald-trump","tag-jeanine-john-taele","tag-los-angeles","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-patrick-grandy","tag-product-30031-ap-california-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32520-ap-online-other-u-s-government-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-trump-golf-course-los-angeles-arrest-weapons","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117473874026788208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}