But let's begin on the scene right now in California
where a local sheriff saying his deputies might have disrupted
a third potential assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump
. Authorities arresting an armed man Saturday near the site
of Trump's campaign rally in the desert Las Vegas resident
, Vim Miller says he supports Trump and wasn't trying
to kill him. Our justice correspondent, Jamal Andrews
joins us live now and Jamal, what else do
we know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen
, this has all the markings of a uh narrowly
avoided um serious crime. But again, all of
that evidence at this point is circumstantial. You have
to draw an inference to sort of get there and
there is not concrete evidence that that what that is
, what was going on here. And that's why
you see those relatively modest charges. But let's start
from the beginning, as you mentioned, uh former
President Trump holding a rally out there in Coachella,
California. And this 49 year old Las Vegas resident
was arrested at that rally. Um at one of
the checkpoints, he made it past the initial checkpoint
and then at the second checkpoint where he said he
was AAA reporter, a journalist of some kind that
is when his car was searched and there were several
red flags there. I want to show you some
of the things that were found in his possession on
the screen here. One, an unregistered vehicle,
a homemade uh, fake license plate is how the
sheriff described it multiple passports and of course, illegally
in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun and
a high capacity magazine. And that's ultimately what he
was charged with possession of an illegal gun as well
as that high capacity magazine. He was arrested on
those charges and ultimately released the same day on$5000
bail. And again, that may seem like a
modest charge for what could have been going on here
. But again, we don't have the evidence that
that is exactly what he was going to do or
what he was attempting to do by going to this
rally. Authorities say he made it, he was
arrested well before former President Trump arrived to the venue
where this rally was going to take place. And
they also said in a statement, this incident did
not impact the safety of former President Trump or the
attendees of that rally. But again, you hear
a, a sober press conference from the deputy there
in California essentially saying as you alluded to that,
he believes this could have been much more serious than
it was. Listen to this uh if they are
ever able to prove that it was assassination attempt.
But, and I'm not saying they're going to be
able to, uh, but anything like that would
be federal, the state crimes are the weapons charges
that we arrested him for. It's all going to
be speculation about what his intentions were getting there.
What we do know is he showed up with multiple
passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with fake
license plate and loaded firearms. I I, if
you're asking me right now, I probably did have
deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt. And Dale
listen, if you look at this uh situation,
this incident compared to what happened in Florida on Trump's
golf course. There are discernible differences, you know
that the gentleman at the golf course in Florida staked
out for 12 hours, he had his firearm out
and pointed at the golf course as opposed to this
, this gentleman who essentially never got past security,
even though he had all of these things in his
possession that pointed to some bad intentions. So again
, we'll have to see exactly what comes next.
Obviously, the FBI and secret service are investigating this
, but as of right now, just those simple
gun possession charges for the individual here. Yes.
The question has to be asked, what would we
be saying if he had attempted to shoot the former
president of the United States? Our justice correspondent Jamal
Andrews for us on the scene. Jamal, as
always, we thank you very much.