KENNEWICK — The Eastern Washington man arrested last month with weapons and explosives materials outside of former President Barack Obama’s will be held without bail.
The judge said that Taranto is not a flight risk, but there is “clear and convincing evidence Taranto poses a danger,” according to a tweet from CBS Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane.
MacFarlane was reporting from the federal court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning where Taranto, 37, of Pasco, appeared for a bail hearing.
Taranto is currently being held on four misdemeanor charges related to his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but has not yet been charged for his alleged actions in June.
He appeared in court on Wednesday for a pretrial detention hearing where prosecutors argued he should be held without bail, describing Taranto in court documents as dangerous and a flight risk.
At the heart of the matter was whether Federal Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui could hold Taranto as a flight risk without new charges having been filed for his arrest by federal agents for allegedly threatening the Obamas and other lawmakers.
Defense attorneys told the judge that Taranto was “savagely attacked” Tuesday in the D.C. Metropolitan Jail by other Jan. 6 defendants, according to NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly.
MacFarlane said that his defense attorney told the judge Taranto was moved to isolation after the attack.
The reason for the attack was not clear but commenters on a Gateway Pundit article that Trump had linked to accused Taranto of being a “false flag” and a federal plant, despite his long history of promoting similar conspiracy theories about federal agents and Antifa being the real cause of Jan. 6.
Taranto is a one-time Pasco school board candidate and former webmaster for the Franklin County Republican Party. He had been traveling back and forth between the Tri-Cities and D.C. over the past two years to participate in various protests, according to now deleted social media videos.
He was in the Tri-Cities as recently as April participating in a protest against a drag brunch at Emerald of Siam. Despite his recent local activity, the Franklin County Republican Central Committee says it cut all ties with Taranto last year.
Arguing bail
In a filing in support of detention prosecutors argued that the judge had authority to hold Taranto without bail, and pointed to his actions in filming children at an elementary school while allegedly trying to intimidate Congressman Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, who had served on the Jan. 6 House Select Committee and led the impeachment against former president Donald Trump, according to court documents.
The filing revealed that not only had Taranto been filming students at Piney Branch Elementary School near Raskin’s home and entered the school, but investigators have since learned he also had been allegedly filming students at another school.
In that second instance prosecutors say Taranto filmed an evacuation drill at Payne Elementary School in D.C., allegedly saying on the recording they were evacuating because there was “violent white supremacist out somewhere, “ according to court documents.
The prosecutors also included transcripts of previous bail hearings related to Jan. 6 riot defendants in which it had been successfully argued they should be held without bail on similar charges.
His wife had flown to D.C. to attend the hearings last week, and to ask the judge to name her Taranto’s third-party supervisor, according to a report from WUSA9.
The warrant for Taranto’s arrest for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection was issued last Thursday morning, just hours before his arrest outside former president Barack Obama’s Kalorama neighborhood home.
Taranto is also a co-defendant in a wrongful death civil lawsuit brought by the widow of a D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer.
Court documents show federal agents were already searching for him after Taranto made multiple threats to turn his van into a bomb to attack lawmakers and a federal building. Prosecutors say he went to Obama’s neighborhood after Trump posted the address and conspiracy theories about the home on Truth Social.
Guns, hundreds of rounds of ammo and materials to make explosives were found in his van after Taranto was arrested running toward Obama’s home after being spotted by Secret Service.
In the days before his arrest, Taranto is accused of making threats to bomb U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as well as a federal facility. He also is accused of entering the elementary school, claiming on the livestream that he was doing it because the school was near Raskin’s home, according to court documents.
Federal investigators began searching for Taranto immediately, but were unable to locate him because he had been living out of his van. They honed in on him on the morning of June 29 when he began posting about Obama and then livestreaming himself walking around the neighborhood looking for “secret tunnels”, access points and “angles” for a shot, according to court documents. It’s unclear what kind of “shot” he was referring to.
Protection order and search warrant
According to a search and seizure warrant filed Wednesday, investigators found weapons in Taranto’s van including: two guns, more than 600 rounds of ammo, 13 magazines, a machete and a mini sledge hammer. They also found several jars with white powder and one jar with black powder.
There was also a variety of video recording equipment and pills in baggies labeled as various vitamins. A hat matching the “Make Space Great Again” hat Taranto is seen wearing in Jan. 6 surveillance was also found in the van.
Also filed this week was a protection order regarding discovery in the case. The order is centered on any discovery of “sensitive” or “highly sensitive” materials entered into evidence, and bars Taranto from posting or disseminating them outside the confines of the case.
For example, if details of the former president’s Secret Service security was entered into evidence, and Taranto were out on bail and posted about those “sensitive” details on social media, he could find himself in hot water.
Trump recently blasted news outlets for using a photo of Taranto with a cardboard cutout of the former president, calling them Fake News and suggesting that the special counsel investigating him had been involved in using the photo.
That photo is from a Franklin County Republic event, and was posted on social media by Taranto.
