Armed suspect arrested at Trump rally insists he’s ‘an artist’ — not a would-be assassin

Vem Miller insists he’s absolutely not a would-be presidential assassin.

Rather, the 49-year-old dual US-Canadian citizen, who was arrested Saturday with a loaded handgun, shotgun, and a high-capacity magazine in the parking area of a Trump rally in Coachella, California, is “but an artist,” he told The Independent.

Miller, a onetime journalist who has worked as a music video director and now runs a website called the America Happens Network — which features conspiracy-minded videos about 9/11 being “an inside job” and the “so-called” Covid-19 pandemic — said he “was certainly not there to cause any harm to anybody.”

At a news conference on Sunday, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco called Miller a “lunatic” with “fringe” views, and claimed his arrest may have headed off a third assassination attempt. But Trump was never in any danger at Saturday’s rally, the Secret Service, FBI, and US Attorney’s Office said in a joint statement.

In July, Trump’s ear was bloodied after being grazed by a gunman’s bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Last month, a suspected assassin was arrested lurking on the permiter of Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a rifle while the former president was playing.

Members of the Nevada GOP had invited Miller to attend the rally, the Las Vegas resident said on Monday, rattling off his MAGA bona fides as evidence he was not at the event with a plan to kill the Republican nominee. He described himself as a member of the Republican Party, a Trump caucus captain, and as of a week ago, a Trump “team leader.”

“I gathered votes for [Trump] for the primary,” Miller said in a voice message to The Independent. “... I’ve been embedded with the Trump people on countless occasions, hung out with the Trump sons, hung out with people that are integral and closely associated with the Trump campaign… If people want to actually learn more about me, they could watch the America Happens Network, where for over six years we’ve been producing pro-Trump content.”

For his part, Miller believes his work demonstrates a view that “art is the greatest weapon.”

“I am but an artist, and that’s the only thing I am,” Miller said. “And in the spirit of that, the pen is always mightier than the sword, which is what I live by.”

Miller graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature, with a concentration in creative writing. He has written and produced documentaries for Vice, MTV, and other well-known outlets, then went out on his own in 2022, his LinkedIn profile shows. Until he legally changed his name in 2022, Miller went by Vem Yenovkian, and, for unclear reasons, has also had a US passport under the name Vem Steinberg, according to legal filings posted online by freelance journalist Jacqueline Sweet.

Miller ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for a Nevada State Assembly seat, selling himself as a “constitutional conservative Republican that is horrified at what is happening to this country.” On Instagram, Miller can be seen in photos with comedian and recent right-wing convert Russell Brand, far-right activist James O’Keefe and also-ran third-party candidate-turned-Trump booster Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

According to Bianco, Miller tried to gain VIP access to Saturday’s rally by falsely claiming he was a member of the press. When he drove up, deputies flagged various “irregularities,” such as a bogus license plate normally used by so-called “sovereign citizens” who believe, among other things, that the federal government is illegitimate. A search of Miller’s car turned up the two firearms, plus multiple passports and drivers’ licenses in various names, Bianco said.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Miller posted a rambling, hour-plus response to Bianco’s “lies” on Rumble, the YouTube alternative favored by the far-right, which he shared with The Independent.

Miller said he was broadcasting from “a cheap motel room” somewhere in the Coachella area, after being sprung from jail on a $5,000 bond. He emphasized his support for Trump, claiming the former president “is one of the only individuals that I’ve seen have the courage to actually stand up to this tyranny against ‘we the people.’”

Miller said he arrived at the rally location on Saturday around 3 p.m., and was directed to an onsite parking lot. He had a shotgun and a Glock in the trunk, which are legal in Nevada.

Miller said he never owned any firearms until he began getting death threats in 2022 over “the content [he] produced],” and purchased a shotgun and a Glock semi-automatic for self-defense. He has been to Trump rallies with the guns on hand, and said he is always sure to tell the police officers, “out of courtesy,” that, “My name is Vem Miller, I work closely with the Trump campaign and individuals within the Trump campaign, [and] I’m just letting you know that in the trunk of my car, I have two firearms.”

“I’m certainly not going to take these firearms into the actual rally location,” Miller said, dancing around the notion of his being a sovereign citizen without providing a straight answer.

Miller said he did the same when he arrived at the Coachella rally, only this time, the deputies on duty “ransacked” his truck, looking for incriminating evidence. Suddenly, he was in handcuffs and in the back of a squad car, Miller claimed, noting, again, that he was “not there for anything nefarious.”

Sometime after 1 a.m., Miller said he was released from jail. He was at first “distraught” about having his mugshot taken, but said he felt better about it after remembering that Trump also has one. He plans on suing the officers behind his arrest, Miller said.

“They literally created hundreds of millions of dollars of liability slandering my name as a potential assassin,” Miller’s video statement concludes. “I mean, that is just absolutely insane. Absolutely insane… You know, since I started, I’ve always been a devout Christian. I’ve always tried to follow the path of Jesus Christ… I was never one for the money. But I certainly think that the mistakes these officers made in operating under the color of law… just made me an ungodly amount of money.”

Miller is scheduled to appear in court on January 2.