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A deranged man busted with a gun at President Trump’s golf club allegedly amassed a chilling trove of hundreds of pages on Secret Service agents, golf course sketches and copies of the First Lady’s daily schedule.
Jeanine John Taele, 38, a decorate Marine veteran from Downey, appeared before Judge John Lonergan in Los Angeles Wednesday. Taele was scruffy and dressed in a suicide smock for the preliminary hearing as prosecutors revealed additional details about his arrest.
Taele had several notebooks with 208 pages containing drawings and sketches of the golf course, lists of Secret Service schedules, details of individual security members and copies of Melania Trump’s schedule, prosecutors said.
He had also allegedly done research in “going off the grid.”
Judge Lonergan called the allegations against Taele “alarming in this day and age with the violence that is creeping into our everyday lives especially with the partisanship with the political climate.”
Taele remained mostly expressionless as it was revealed he is currently mentally unfit to stand trial. His bail was revoked, keeping him behind bars until his next court appearance Sept. 9.
Federal agents first spotted Taele at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles on July 31 while assessing security for the commander-in-chief’s August 4 visit, according to prosecutors.
Taele allegedly walked around the course wearing an earpiece while photographing and filming agents’ security-planning activities.
He returned to the course on August 2 and approached federal agents, authorities said.
During his exchange with agents, Taele falsely claimed he worked for the State Department and had been assigned to a security detail, according to prosecutors. He also allegedly admitted having a loaded firearm in his pickup truck in the club parking lot.
Sheriff’s deputies detained Taele after learning he was wanted in the unrelated robbery case.
During a pat-down, they allegedly found a 16-round magazine containing hollow-point ammunition in his pants pocket.
A search of his truck uncovered a loaded 9mm pistol, hollow-point ammunition, binoculars and a badge reading “security protection agent.”
Investigators searched Taele’s Downey home the following day and seized an illegally modified AR-style rifle, additional firearms, body armor, high-capacity magazines and communications equipment.
They also recovered seven notebooks filled with detailed surveillance logs, the California Post previously revealed.
“Anyone with that amount of firepower around the President poses a serious threat,” First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli told the Post after Taele’s arrest. Essayli said investigators had not determined Taele’s motive, but described his alleged conduct as “not normal behavior.”
Taele is separately charged in federal court with possessing an unregistered short-barreled rifle. The barrel had allegedly been cut from 14 inches down to 10 inches. The felony carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Taele served in the Marine Corps from March 2008 until March 2016, attaining the rank of corporal and deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.
His decorations included two Marine Corps Good Conduct Medals, the Iraq and Afghanistan Campaign Medals and the NATO International Security Assistance Force Medal.
Taele has not yet entered a plea in the federal case. His initial federal appearance was postponed while he remained in state custody.
Trump visited the Rancho Palos Verdes club for a Republican National Committee fundraiser two days after Taele’s arrest.
He shrugged off the security scare to Fox News. “The only thing I get a little solace from is they say only consequential presidents, and I am definitely consequential,” he told the outlet.
Taele pleaded not guilty to all four state charges — felony possession of a short-barreled rifle or shotgun, a felony large-capacity-magazine offense, felony second-degree robbery and misdemeanor carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle — at his August 4 arraignment in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The robbery charge stems from an alleged Nov. 2025 incident in El Segundo and is unrelated to his arrest at the golf club.
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