Taylor Taranto, a January 6 rioter pardoned by President Donald Trump and arrested near Barack Obama’s home in 2023, was on Tuesday convicted of illegal possession of guns and ammunition.
Per NBC News, Taranto’s conviction came after authorities arrested him as he was livestreaming a video close to former President Obama’s Washington, D.C. residence. Taranto was additionally convicted of false information and hoaxes – a charge brought against him after he streamed a video claiming he was going to blow up the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology in a “one-way mission”
“On June 28, 2023, near National Harbor, Maryland, Taranto broadcast a livestream of himself as he sat behind the wheel of his van. He stated that he had been ‘working on a detonator’ and indicated to his audience that he would drive a car bomb into the National Institute of Standards and Technology,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia, said in a statement on Wednesday.
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“His target was a neutron reactor housed at the NIST campus. He then drove over the Wilson Bridge to Alexandria, Virginia, where he parked his van in the middle of the street and ran away from it, demonstrating to his audience how he would create the appearance of an emergency.”
In June 2023, Trump took to social media to post a screenshot of information he claimed was Obama’s Washington, D.C. residential address. That same day, authorities said Taranto re-shared Trump’s post and then made another post regarding his presence outside Obama’s home, per NBC News. “We got these losers surrounded!” he wrote.
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“The FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Joint Terrorism Task Force mobilized immediately to find Taranto, alerting regional law enforcement agencies of the potential bomb threat,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia, also said in the statement.
“The following day, the FBI discovered Taranto’s location when he broadcast another livestream that showed him driving around D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood. Law enforcement officers arrested Taranto at Kalorama and discovered that the bomb threat was a hoax. When law enforcement officers searched his vehicle, they found two firearms, multiple magazines, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.”
Prosecutors also claimed that Taranto on multiple occasions said that he wanted to get a “shot” and a “good angle on a shot.”
Reacting to the verdict, Taranto’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, told NBC News that he thought the court’s decision was a “terrible outcome under a statute that is overbroad and violates the First Amendment.”
“Mr. Taranto is an honorably discharged, disabled veteran with no prior convictions, no history of violent conduct. He’s been convicted of having made a bad joke with absolutely no evidence that he intended to carry out any criminal conduct,” Hernandez added.
Authorities said U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols will “schedule a sentencing hearing after ruling on the defense’s request to release Taranto pending sentencing.”
