Whenever I see reports of someone being arrested for “threatening” behavior in the vicinity of a prominent individual or elected official, warning bells go off in the back of my mind. These days, both the media and law enforcement can place a “threatening” tag on almost anyone for reasons that seem dubious at best. You can be accused of threatening someone’s safety over a social media post where you claim that men can’t have babies. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with 37-year-old Taylor Taranto, who was arrested on June 29th near the Washington home of Barack and Michelle Obama. This guy seems to be legitimately crazy and potentially quite dangerous. The curious angle to this story, however, is the way the Associated Press suggests that the situation was (wait for it…) Donald Trump’s fault.

Former President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform what he claimed was the home address of former President Barack Obama on the same day that a man with guns in his van was arrested near the property, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in revealing new details about the case.

Taylor Taranto, 37, who prosecutors say participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, kept two firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside a van he had driven cross-country and had been living in, according to a Justice Department motion that seeks to keep him behind bars.

On the day of his June 29 arrest, prosecutors said, Taranto reposted a Truth Social post from Trump containing what Trump claimed was Obama’s home address. In a post on Telegram, Taranto wrote: “We got these losers surrounded! See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s.” That’s a reference to John Podesta, the former chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic presidential campaign.

If you click through to the AP article linked above you will see what I mean. This is presumably an article about a dangerous and heavily armed man who had traveled across the country with the intent of committing acts of violence. And yet, the first four words at the top of the article are “Former President Donald Trump.” So what did Trump do to “cause” this situation? He posted the location of the Obamas’ Washington home on Truth Social. Then Taranto reposted the information, with a thinly veiled threat to both the Obamas and the family of John Podesta for some reason.

Let’s keep in mind that the locations of Barack Obama’s several luxurious homes are not classified or protected information. You can go to Google and find them easily. You may recall that all the major news networks broadcasted aerial shots of Obama’s sprawling mansion at Martha’s Vineyard back during the illegal migrant “invasion” of the island. These people are not hard to find.

But with all of that said, Taranto clearly seems to be deranged. In his Truth Social repost, he wrote “See you in hell” in reference to the two families. He was living in his van in the Washington area, equipped with body armor and some serious weaponry, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

This maniac was livestreaming himself on YouTube, telling his followers that he was near Obama’s home and looking for “a good angle on a shot.” He had previously claimed on his channel that he was on a “one-way mission” and was going to “blow up” the National Institute of Standards and Technology. What the NIST had done to invoke his wrath was not made clear.

It’s worth noting that Taranto was already facing charges for his participation in the January 6 riot, so he was on the FBI’s radar. He was only facing misdemeanor charges, so he probably wasn’t one of the actual rioters who attacked the Capitol Hill Police or damaged the building. But he was there on that day so he was being closely monitored. (Perhaps that’s why the FBI was too busy to look into Hunter Biden’s activities.) He was engaging in various conspiracy theories, including one claiming that the death of Ashley Babbitt was “a hoax.”

Taylor Taranto sounds for all the world like someone who was capable of getting something into his head and letting it fester until he was prepared to explode into violent action. And while I’m always ready to defend people’s right to free speech and their ability to criticize the government, it’s probably better that this guy is off the streets for a while.