Taylor Taranto, a 37-year-old alleged Jan. 6 rioter arrested near ex-President Barack Obama’s home on Thursday, was found with two guns, 400 rounds of ammunition, a machete, and materials to make Molotov cocktails in his van, federal authorities say. Authorities found his van, which he had been living in, near the location of his arrest and conducted a bomb sweep of the vehicle. A Metropolitan Police Department official told The Daily Beast Taranto had been charged as a fugitive from justice, pursuant to an arrest warrant. “See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s!” Taranto wrote on Telegram the same day of his arrest. According to an affidavit filed Thursday, Taranto stormed into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and “scuffled with police officers” amid the right-wing mob. He faces four misdemeanor counts in connection to the riots, the documents say. The “Sedition Hunters,” an online network that tracks down insurrectionists, identified Taranto two years ago as one of the men involved in the assault of D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Jeffrey Smith. He is the subject of a lawsuit from Smith’s wife in which she accuses him of leading him to commit suicide.
