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An Eastern Washington man arrested with 400 rounds of ammo near former President Barack Obama's home had been acting erratically for months.

Few details have been released about Taylor Taranto's arrest by Secret Service agents but his increasingly agitated social posts had raised concerns in D.C. and Tri-Cities, Wash.

The Franklin County Republican Central Committee had grown so concerned that he was barred from participation in the organization that he had once managed the web presence for.

He was booked into the D.C. Metropolitan Jail on Friday evening, according to the jail's records department. No charges were yet showing.

Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Law enforcement officials say, Taylor Taranto, a man wanted for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has been arrested in the Washington neighborhood where former President Barack Obama lives. Taranto was seen a few blocks from the former president's home, and he fled even though he was chased by U.S. Secret Service agents.

In a recent Facebook post Taranto had encouraged his followers to subscribe to his Telegram channel for "daily updates while the Federal Government and I viciously war at each other in real-time."

Taranto, 37, is a former Franklin County Republican Party official and one-time Pasco school board candidate, who is being sued in a wrongful death lawsuit related to the death of a D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer that he allegedly helped attack during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Taranto admitted online to being in the Capitol and also to the Herald during an interview when he responded to a request for comment at 11 p.m. on the first anniversary of the insurrection.

He had not yet been charged criminally for his role in the riot, but the D.C. police department said Thursday he was arrested on a warrant related to his participation.

Court documents for that warrant have not yet been made available. It's unclear if it is related the the wrongful death lawsuit.

According to NBC News reporter Ryan J. Reilly, who broke the story of his arrest, Taranto had more than 400 rounds of ammunition in his van when he was arrested outside Obama's home.

He was reportedly stopped by Secret Service agents running toward the home. It's unclear if he had a weapon at the time.

Messages on his social media accounts show he had recently shared a conspiracy theory posted by former President Donald J. Trump with the address.

Some initial news stories said the U.S. Navy veteran was from Seattle, however the D.C. police department listed him as "of no fixed address" in a statement sent to the Herald and other news outlets.

Public records show Taranto lived in Pasco until recently. Prior to 2010 he lived in Kennewick. Both are part of the Tri-Cities metro area in Eastern Washington about 200 miles east of Seattle.

This Seattle claim appears to have come from an unnamed law enforcement source.

As recently as April, Taranto was still in the Tri-Cities, participating in a protest against an Easter Day drag show brunch at a Richland restaurant, according to video he posted to his YouTube channel.

The channel also showed Taranto had been traveling back and forth to D.C. to participate in various right wing protests. His YouTube channel and some social media pages have since been taken down.

Recently, Taranto was said to be living in his van parked near the D.C. Metropolitan Jail participating in "Freedom Corner," an ongoing vigil outside the jail in support of Jan. 6 insurrection suspects.

Videos show erratic behavior from Taranto during the vigils. In one video he can be seen sitting in a lawn chair holding a flag, bobbing his head back and forth for several minutes before other protesters block the camera.

He may have been kicked out of that Freedom Corner group. Content later removed from his social media accounts shows friction with other group members and organizers. Others monitoring the group also mentioned he appears to have been on the outs with the other organizers.

He also was spotted at a sentencing hearing for his co-defendant, David Walls Kaufman, in the civil suit earlier this month. Taranto's behavior, which included refusing to put away his phone inside a federal courthouse, led to him being asked to leave, according to Reilly.

Reilly posted videos to Twitter showing Taranto leaving the courthouse. The reporter had been tracking the lawsuit against Taranto and Kaufman as part of ongoing reporting on Jan. 6 participants.

Reilly has a book called Sedition Hunters coming out in October about the tipsters who helped identify accused insurrection participants.

Taranto appeared to have gone to the Kalorama neighborhood after reposting conspiracy theories about the Obamas' residence.

The conspiracy theories, posted on Truth social by Trump, claimed that there were secret tunnels beneath the Obama house, that it contained a " War Room" and was funded by left-wing philanthropist George Soros.

For more than a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the capitol Taranto was still volunteering with the party as its webmaster, he told the Herald in a January 2022 interview.

At some point later that year Taranto was kicked out of the local party over erratic behavior and had shared with party members that he was suffering from PTSD after his military service.

"I want the public to know that Taylor is no longer an active member of the Franklin County Republicans," Central Committee Chairman Stephen Bauman told the Herald in a statement Friday.

"He was officially removed from the FCRCC by party leadership in 2022 as webmaster and as an active member for his radical and erratic social media posts that did not align with our values," he wrote.

"To be crystal clear again, Taranto hasn't attended a meeting in nearly a year and hasn't attempted to communicate with party leadership," he said.

Bauman emphasized that the Franklin County Republican Central Committee "in no way, shape or form condones violence in any fashion. The allegations against Taylor in connection to former president Barack Obama's home are troubling and we are grateful that authorities were able to stop any violent actions from occurring."

And he said the committee has "never been involved" in Taranto's defense and "in no way, shape or form condones what transpired or the violence that ensued during that dark day (Jan. 6)."

"The FCRCC values those veterans who have fought for our freedoms to make this the greatest country the world has ever known. It's why we hope Taylor Taranto receives the help he needs. He has openly shared with our group that he suffers from PTSD from active military service," said Bauman.

Taranto used a variety of social media accounts to post conspiracy theories, memes and videos of himself at right wing political events.

Some of the accounts used his initials, others anagrams of his or his wife's names and others used a portion of her maiden name. Still others were self-identified as belonging to Taranto on his social media posts.

Many of them were linked to the same email address that Taranto previously used to respond to the Herald. Most of his accounts have been taken down since his arrest Thursday. That's standard practice by many social media companies to avoid copy cats or idolization.

Taranto is accused of entering the capitol and helping Kaufman attack MPD Officer Jeffrey Smith. He and Kaufman are being sued by the officer's widow, Erin Smith, for $7 million.

In video stills submitted into evidence, Taranto is seen handing Kaufman a weapon of some sort. In court documents it is described as a Ka-Bar TDI Self Defense Cane. The company describes it as "a vital defense tool where traditional weapons are prohibited." The canes weigh more than two pounds, which is significantly heavier than traditional collapsible aluminum walking canes.

Kaufman was accused of hitting Smith in the head repeatedly with the cane.

Smith died by suicide nine days later as he was scheduled to return to work.

Smith's widow said in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, published in January 2022, that two medical examiners "have testified that post-concussive syndrome and brain injury were the real causes of (her husband's) death" because the concussion he suffered led to severe depression and suicide.

Included in the wrongful death lawsuit are photos showing Kaufman, circled in green, struggling with Capitol police, and also appears to show Taranto next to him, in the hoodie and dark colored hat that says "Make Space Great Again" that internet sleuths reportedly used to identify him after the riot.

It is unclear if the officer in the photo with his protective mask raised is Jeffrey Smith.

Other photo shows Taranto walking down the halls of the Capitol building with the cane mentioned in the wrongful death lawsuit, just a few feet away from Kaufman. The photos match pictures of Taranto and Kaufman included in the wrongful death lawsuit. The criminal affidavit does not mention Taranto, however prosecutors did include the same pictures.

Taranto had previously filed a counterclaim asking for $3.5 million and an apology, but that was dismissed.

The case has been slowed after the assigned judge, Florence Y. Pan, was nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals to fill the seat vacated by new Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Kaufman entered a plea deal in his criminal case, and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine and $500 restitution. The plea deal, signed in January, also included an agreement from Kaufman to cooperate with investigators in additional cases before his sentencing.

It was Kaufman's June 13 sentencing in D.C. where Reilly spotted Taranto.

Taranto also appears to have claimed that we was there when Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed while trying to break through a door members of Congress were secured behind.

Taranto is pictured with Babbitt's family members in several social media posts from the Freedom Corner protests.

Taranto was first identified after outing himself in a video taken in the Capitol building during the attack.

Internet sleuths known as #SeditionHunters used the video to match up photos released by law enforcement in the days after the attack.

A screenshot of the post showed it included the comment: "This is me 'stormin' the capitol' lol I'm only sharing this so someone will report me to the feds and we can get this party rolling!"

Since then Taranto has been asking in his social posts? why he hasn't been arrested, and making jokes online about the attack.

When asked by the Herald if he could explain what he was doing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Taranto responded with "no comment."

He later added that he was unsure what he could say due to the ongoing litigation. He also claimed it was political persecution, and referred to multiple conspiracy theories.

"So far no one has knocked on the door. No one (in law enforcement) has questioned me, to my knowledge. It's all rather strange," he told the Herald at the time.

"If I was even remotely linked to what they're saying, you'd think I'd be in handcuffs right now, and with the way the justice system is working right now, it's rather ugly."

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WOODLAWN Cornell Drive will close for good Friday between the Midway Plaisance and Hayes Drive.

The half-mile stretch of Cornell Drive, which has long been a popular route for drivers traveling between DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Stony Island Avenue, will permanently close as road work continues ahead of the Obama Presidential Centers opening.

Cornell Drive will reopen between Hayes and Marquette drives Saturday, while Hayes Drive from Stony Island Avenue to Cornell Drive will be temporarily closed.

The closed portion of Cornell Drive will be converted to park use as city officials reconfigure Jackson Park and nearby streets to accommodate the Obama Presidential Center.

Northbound drivers traveling from Stony Island Avenue to DuSable Lake Shore Drive should take Stony Island Avenue to Cornell Drive to Hayes Drive to DuSable Lake Shore Drive, transportation officials said.

Southbound drivers traveling from DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Stony Island Avenue should take DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Hayes Drive to Cornell Drive to Stony Island Avenue, officials said.

DuSable Lake Shore Drive will also reopen in full after being widened to include three lanes in each direction near Jackson Park.

Most pedestrian underpasses between 57th and Hayes drives including new underpasses below Hayes Drive at DuSable Lake Shore and Cornell drives will be open. The underpass near 59th Street Harbor remains temporarily closed.

Roadway narrowing and parking restrictions will remain in effect as crews continue work to widen Stony Island Avenue.

The traffic changes are the latest updates in a redesign of roads in and around Jackson Parkfor the Obama Center.In addition to widening DuSable Lake Shore Drive and Stony Island Avenue, planned permanent road changes include:

The projects second phase will focus on road work south of 64th Street and take place until 2025.

The third phase will focus on building pedestrian underpasses south of 64th Street including ones at Jeffery Boulevard and South Shore Drive starting in 2025.

The citys transportation department is set to spend$174 million in state fundson the road projects.

For more information on Obama Center-related road work,visit the citys website for Jackson Park.

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Former US President Barack Obama last week said Indian PM Narendra Modis government should do more to protect Muslims.

Prominent ministers from Indias ruling party have derided comments by former US President Barack Obama that Prime Minister Narendra Modis government should protect the rights of minority Muslims, accusing him of being hypocritical.

During Modis state visit to the United States last week, Obama told CNN the issue of the protection of the Muslim minority in a majority-Hindu India would be worth raising in his meeting with US President Joe Biden.

Obama said without such protection there was a strong possibility that India at some point starts pulling apart.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said Obama should not forget that India is the only country which considers all the people living in the world as family members.

He should also think about himself as to how many Muslim countries he has attacked, added Singh, whose statement came a day after another top Indian minister slammed the former US president for his remarks.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said she was shocked that Obama made such remarks when Modi was visiting the US aiming to deepen relations.

He was commenting on Indian Muslims having bombed Muslim-majority countries from Syria to Yemen during his presidency, Sitharaman told a press conference on Sunday.

Why would anyone listen to any allegations from such people?

The US Department of State has raised concerns over the treatment of Muslims and other religious minorities in India under Modis Hindu nationalist party. The Indian government says it treats all citizens equally.

Biden said he discussed human rights and other democratic values with Modi during their talks at the White House.

Modi, at a press conference with Biden last week, denied any discrimination against minorities under his government.

We have proved democracy can deliver. When I say deliver, regardless of caste, creed, religion, gender there is absolutely no space for any discrimination [in my government], Modi told reporters at the White House.

Democracy is our spirit, Modi added. Democracy runs in our veins. We live democracy, and our ancestors have actually put words to this concept.

The 72-year-old leader has been accused of presiding over his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by passing anti-Muslim legislation and implementing anti-Muslim policies. That includes a law on citizenship and the end of the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir, Indias only Muslim-majority region, in 2019.

The United Nations human rights office described the citizenship law as fundamentally discriminatory for excluding Muslim migrants.

Critics have also pointed to anti-conversion legislation that challenged the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief.

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'Bombed Muslim nations': BJP ministers to Obama over Modi remark - Al Jazeera English

Barack Obama is getting candid about several topics with Hasan Minhaj, including how his famous end-of-year lists which allegedly reveal the former president's favorite books, movies and songs of the year are actually curated.

The former president, 61, sat down with the comedian for a one-on-one interview where he was subjected to Minhaj's line of questioning, which involved an intense interrogation right out of the gate.

I need you to look me in the eyes and be honest with me," Minhaj, 37, said at the beginning of the interview. "Mr. President, when you do your end-of-the-year lists, do you really read all those books, watch all those shows and listen to all those songs?

Obama immediately replied, I do.

When the comedian expressed doubt, Obama explained, People believe the books and the movies, but the playlists, they somehow think... and this is somehow coming from young people like you. Somehow yall think you invented rock and roll. You invented hip-hop.

And so the fact that my lists are, you know, pretty incredible, people seem to think, 'Well he must have had some 20-year-old intern who was figuring out this latest cut.' No man, its on my iPad right now, he continued.

Minhaj dubiously asked if the song Life is Good by SiR featuring ScribzRiley was on his iPad and what the plotline was for the book Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah both of which made their way onto his 2022 lists.

Look heres the bottom line of my playlists, and my book lists and my movie lists: I am very scrupulous about making sure this is stuff I actually like, Obama said.

I will confess that there are times on the playlists, on the music playlists, where I will get suggestions because its not like I got time to be listening to music all the time, he admitted. So typically at the end of the year what happens is folks will be like, Man, you need to listen to this. This is good. But unless Im actually listening to it, watching it, reading it, I wont put it on there.

Before letting the topic go, Minhaj quickly asked what would have happened if Obama didn't choose his wife's book, The Light We Carry, as one of his favorite books of 2022. "Well that would be foolish, because we share a bank account," he responded with a laugh.

Minhaj went on to tackle deeper questions, too, including asking Obama if he was depressed amid all the current events: the overturning of Roe v. Wade, book bans, multiple mass shootings and climate change.

There is no way the 'Hope' and the 'Change' guy does not feel depressed," Minhaj said. "You are too smart not to feel depressed. Youre too intelligent.

Shaniqwa Jarvis

Obama responded: First of all, there are times when I do feel depressed because objectively when you see an entire school terrified because a gunman is walking in with weapons of war, if your hearts not breaking then somethings wrong with you. If you think thats normal then you really do need some therapy.

He also explained that climate change was another worry of his with record forest fires, and said there is evidence that were not moving as fast as we need to to fight climate change, but he tries to put things into perspective. Obama added that the key is not to be blind to the genuine challenges and threats that are in front of us but also to think about how far we have come as humanity.

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We can go through some lists of moments that are significantly worse than this, the former president said, listing big events like World War I, World War II and the Great Depression.

"You grew up and in some ways I grew up in this anomalous stretch of time in which even though bad things were happening, for the most part, the trajectory of humanity was things were getting better," Obama told Minhaj. "Were becoming less racist and less sexist and less homophobic and better educated and healthier

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The artist behind Barack Obamas iconic Hope poster is taking his talents to a new portrait of John F. Kennedy in a celebration of democracy.

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin, in coordination with the JFK Library Foundation, commissioned a new portrait of the former president to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Kennedys Ich bin ein Berliner speech in West Berlin that famously affirmed democratic values.

When I was looking for inspiration for the Hope poster for Obama, I looked at a lot of different political images but one of the most compelling was JFKs 1960 campaign poster, said Shepard Fairey, the artist, on Boston Public Radio Thursday. Hes looking, sort of, above the viewer off into the distance with a sense of vision. I wanted to convey something like that. ... One of the images that inspired me to create the Hope poster is now something that Im depicting in my style, and its an honor to do it.

Fairey will unveil the new work at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin on June 26. He says he has great admiration for the Kennedys, a family he got closer to when the Hope poster catapulted his work to international fame.

I've become friends with many of them and admired their activism and their sense of social responsibility over the years, Fairey said.

The Hope image resonated widely, in part, Fairey believes, the portrait projected gravitas and legitimacy I will give myself some credit, he said. Those were important traits for a younger, less experienced candidate to convey.

The main reason it had impact is because Obama himself had an impact, Fairey said. Sometimes the the complexity of an individual, the feelings that they conjure in someone, needs something not as complex to become a symbol, to become the icon, the thing that can be transmitted quickly.

He also attributes his success to luck and the timing of the early viral internet age.

I disseminated it both physically with prints and stickers but also had a free download that was a high-res PDF that could be printed out by anyone, he said.

For Fairey, it took persistence and putting out art that aligned with his values to eventually bring about the career he has now. He unveiled a 75-foot-tall Muhammad Ali mural earlier this year at the YMCA where Ali trained growing up, based off an image taken the day that Ali was indicted for defying the Vietnam War draft. Its a mural that honors his courage and strength of convictions. Another mural, displayed at the New England Aquarium, depicts the endangered right whales.

Im really lucky to be in the position, at this point in my career, to be able to choose things that really align with my philosophy. I, for years, worked as a graphic designer, as a screen printer, doing things that I needed to do that paid the bills.

His new work will continue to show his philosophy. The Director of Art in Embassies a friend of Faireys childhood art teacher had reached out to him to see hed be interested in creating a piece of work to the theme of diplomacy for democracy. I think that it's more essential than ever for democracy to, you know, to be protected and nourished, said Fairey.

The artist said that Kennedy illustrated practical and symbolic ways of maintaining democracy. I think he understood the power of words, said Fairey. I included some handwritten bits of the speech into collage in my painting. But the significance of him actually going there, giving the speech in person ... making sure that it would connect emotionally ... I think that's a big part of his genius.

For Fairey, the bigger picture comes down to continuing to put out a hopeful message and a will to maintain democracy.

I consider myself a patriot, meaning that I want to be proud of the country and I am, often, proud of the country, he said. But being proud is about our country living up to its ideals, manifesting in its own behavior, [and] its best ideas.

Morning Edition co-hosts Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel bring a whole new vibe to mornings. Sign up for their newsletter, "The Wake Up," landing in your inbox every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday morning.

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