A Jan. 6 defendant pardoned by President Donald Trump, who was arrested while livestreaming near former President Barack Obama’s house with a stash of guns and weapons, has turned up in Washington, D.C. again — and alarmed Justice Department officials urged a judge to jail him, Politico reported on Thursday evening.
Taylor Taranto’s pardon did not extend to the weapons incident, and the case went to a bench trial this year that ended with U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, sentencing him to 21 months, which got him released on time served — but also subjected him to three years of supervision.
Now, prosecutors are arguing to Nichols that Taranto’s new jaunt to D.C. violates the terms of his supervised release.
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Travis Wolf said Taranto’s return to D.C., his erratic behavior and renewed livestreaming raised serious alarms that he was ‘on the path’ to the same conduct that led to criminal charges against him two years earlier and urged that he be returned to jail,” said the report. “Wolf described acute mental health concerns, a series of alleged violations of Taranto’s supervised release conditions, and alarming social media posts, including one from the parking lot of the Pentagon. The prosecutor discussed other details of Taranto’s case during a closed court session.”
Nichols “did not immediately order him back to prison, but said he would weigh the request over the next few weeks,” said the report. “He ordered Taranto at a court hearing Thursday to return immediately to his home in Washington state for the holidays.”
The Taranto case triggered another round of controversy earlier this year because Trump’s Justice Department mysteriously moved to withdraw and rewrite the sentencing memo, deleting any references to him being a Jan. 6 rioter, and to the fact that Trump had posted Obama’s home address on Truth Social shortly before Taranto traveled there.
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