The armed sovereign citizen who was arrested Saturday outside a Trump rally in Coachella, California offered a bizarre reason for what he was doing there.
Vem Miller—who local officials initially implied was “probably” trying to assassinate former president Donald Trump—claimed that he is actually “very close” with the Republican nominee’s family.
“I've talked to Don Jr., I've talked to Eric Trump,” he said, in a video posted to conservative-friendly streaming site Rumble. “I know a lot of people within the Trump family and the extended family, and I have been integrally involved.”
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Miller claimed he is also well known to the Trump campaign, and said he has been issued passes to campaign events 20 or more times for a conservative online media network he runs.
He said he has a long track record of “going to Trump rallies, covering Trump rallies, being very close with individuals in the Trump extended family, multiple individuals,” which he said could be confirmed by checking his social media accounts.
Miller’s Instagram account features selfies with former Trump advisors Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, as well as a litany of conservative figures like Nigel Farage, Lou Dobbs, Jordan Peterson. He also posted a video of Don Jr. taken at the Republican National Convention in July.
“I should note that I met the president on multiple occasions,” Miller said, describing the president as “very cool.”
He then claimed the first time he met Trump was at the New York City premiere of one of the sequels to the Wesley Snipes vampire action movie Blade.
“First time I met him was at the Blade premiere,” Miller claimed. “I believe it was Blade II or Blade III in New York City,” Miller said. Blade II was released in 2002, while Blade: Trinity—the name of the third film in the series—was released in 2004.
In his video, Miller asserted that he has been a “staunch supporter” of Trump for nearly eight years, although said he doesn’t identify with “any political party except for one that supports our freedoms, our constitutional rights, our medical freedoms and gets rid of the corrupt politicians that are plaguing our nation.”
A self-styled “producer, dj, lawyer, vision guy,” he is a registered Republican and ran for the state assembly in Nevada in 2022 before losing in the primary, according to the San Bernardino Sun.
Miller was arrested Saturday after passing through an initial security checkpoint by stating he had VIP and media passes. Police stopped his black SUV around 5 pm on Saturday, roughly half a mile from the site of the Trump rally.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco later told a press conference that a deputy noticed his vehicle had an “obviously fake” license plate. Police allege they found driver’s licenses and passports with different names, an unregistered loaded handgun and shotgun, and an ammunition magazine in the vehicle.
Bianco said markings on the license plate suggested Miller is a member of “a group of individuals that claim to be sovereign citizens.” Sovereign citizens are a loose network of conspiracy theorists who wrongly believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the government and claim they are exempt from U.S. law.
“We probably stopped another assassination attempt” Bianco told the San Bernardino Sun.
After he was arrested, Miller was booked on firearms charges and released on $5,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear at the Indio Larson Justice Center in January.
The US Secret Service, FBI and the Department of Justice said in a joint statement that Trump “was not in any danger.”
Miller suggested he plans to sue the local police for making “defamatory, nonsensical statements” and that he could win “hundreds of millions.”
“We thank law enforcement for securing the rally site and helping ensure the safety of President Trump,” the former president's campaign said in a statement. “We are aware of news reports about the arrest and are currently monitoring the situation and gathering more information.”
