Authorities in California arrested a man described as a member of the “sovereign citizen” movement with multiple unregistered firearms near a Trump rally on Saturday, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said.
Sheriff’s deputies operating a checkpoint roughly one mile from the former president’s rally in the Coachella Valley on Saturday stopped a man driving a black SUV at 4:59 p.m. The arrest happened before the former president arrived at the rally, the sheriff later confirmed.
The suspect was identified as Vem Miller, a 49-year-old resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. Miller was arrested and charged with possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine, the sheriff’s office said.
At a press conference on Sunday, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said Miller passed an initial outer perimeter, but a deputy noticed an “obviously fake license plate” as he tried to pass a second checkpoint.
The license plate was “one that is homemade and indicative of a group of individuals that claim to be sovereign citizens,” Bianco said. The sheriff said the deputies noticed several other “irregularities” with Miller’s car—the interior was in “disarray,” and he was in possession of “multiple” fake passports and fake drivers’ licenses displaying other names.
Miller claimed to be a journalist with VIP access to the rally, Bianco said, but his press pass “didn’t necessarily materialize.”
Bianco also said that Miller’s car wasn’t registered, as sovereign citizens often don’t believe in registering their cars. “We had to go through VIN number,” the sheriff said. “It actually did belong to him, it just was not ever registered.”
Miller was also in possession of several unregistered firearms, including a shotgun and a loaded handgun, as well as a high caliber magazine, the sheriff’s office said. He was booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center and released on his own recognizance.
Sheriff Chad Bianco speaks at a Trump rally in California’s Coachella Valley on Saturday.
FREDERIC J. BROWN
“Right now, we are actively engaged in working with secret service and the FBI to ensure that this person is followed up on,” Bianco said, adding that his deputies likely prevented Miller from trying to assassinate the president.
“We probably stopped another assassination attempt,” Bianco told the Southern California News Group Sunday afternoon.
At the press conference just hours later, Bianco doubled down on this statement. “I probably did have deputies that attempted the third assassination attempt,” the sheriff said, declining to provide any evidence of the suspect’s intent while insisting it was “common sense and reason.”
The sheriff said that any additional charges would come from federal authorities. In a statement sent to the Daily Beast, federal prosecutors for the Central District of California said they were aware of the incident.
“The U.S. Secret Service assesses that the incident did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “While no federal arrest has been made at this time, the investigation is ongoing.”
Bianco is an outspoken Trump supporter, and even spoke and served as a delegate at the Republican National Convention in July.
Miller is also a registered Republican, and previously ran for a state assembly seat in Clark County in 2022. He lost in the Republican primary for the seat, according to Nevada’s secretary of state.
However, Bianco said he “couldn’t care less what political party he belonged to. He was a lunatic.”
The sheriff described sovereign citizens as a “far-right” group, but did note that they were not necessarily militant. “They don’t believe that laws apply to them,” Bianco told reporters on Sunday.
“This incident did not impact the safety of former President Trump or attendees of the event,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release on Sunday.
