On Oct 12th, 2024, an armed man was arrested in the vicinity of Donald Trump’s Coachella Valley rally in California. The man was in an unregistered vehicle with fake passports, driver’s licenses, a shotgun, a handgun, and a high capacity magazine. He was apprehended at a police checkpoint attempting to enter the rally with a fake press pass. The man, identified as Vem Miller, 49, was booked on weapons charges but sprung after posting $5,000 bail.
While the FBI and Secret Service maintain that the man was not attempting to assassinate the former president, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco states, “I truly believe we prevented another assassination attempt.” He goes on to call Mr. Miller a “lunatic.” Mr. Miller also claims that he was not attempting to assassinate Mr. Trump. He calls the allegations against him “complete bullshit.”
There have been two separate assassination attempts on Former President Trump in 2024, the first at a rally in Pennsylvania and the second at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida. Therefore, the Riverside County Sheriff’s belief that Miller was attempting to assassinate the former president is not without basis. Mr. Miller is a member of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, which is, per the FBI, a group of anti-government extremists who claim to be sovereign citizens while residing in the United States. On his personal instagram account, @vemmiller, Mr. Miller posts a variety of conspiracy theories and interviews for an independent journalism website, AmericaHappens.com.
As of Oct 14, 2024, Mr. Miller has released an hour long statement providing his side of the story on the video sharing platform Rumble. In his statement, Mr. Miller describes his background in the TV industry and his campaign for office in 2022. He claims that the Riverside County Sheriff’s office is falsely accusing him of an assassination plot. He says that he was the victim of “heinous death threats” at the time he attended the Trump Coachella rally and had the firearms in his car for protection.
