Army vet arrested after driving toward DC with assassination threat on car window: feds

A South Carolina veteran faces federal charges after the U.S. Secret Service arrested him last week as he was allegedly headed to D.C. to assassinate the president.

Army veteran Daniel Swain, a South Carolina resident, was arrested in North Carolina while driving a BMW with the message "HEADED TO WSH TO KILL THE PRES" scrawled in white marker across his driver's seat window, according to a press release by the Department of Justice released on Monday. According to a North Carolina criminal complaint, the police were notified on April 29 after employees at a car wash reported the suspicious vehicle.

The car wash was evacuated, and the U.S. Secret Service showed up with K-9 and explosive ordnance disposal teams. When searching Swain's car, they found two containers of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, and a drone, "which can be used in planning for preparation to carry out any attempts of violence," per the complaint.

Swain resisted arrest, but was taken into custody by the Secret Service immediately after the search. He told investigators that he visited the White House, the Capitol, and monuments in Washington, D.C. in the winter to "take action," but when pressed to clarify, he said he intended to "hand out packets of information," according to the complaint.

As for the message written on his car window, he told investigators he was motivated to write it because of "his perceived wrongful death of his father, uncle and grandfather," who had all served in the military and "died under suspicious health-related circumstances," per the complaint. He said the drone was to "take pictures of buildings because he likes architecture," the complaint added.

"He stated he had a duty as a man to protect himself and others," the complaint detailed. Just ten days before his arrest, Swain posted a message on Facebook saying that "Man if I see dodamn Donald Trump's sorry a-- one more time on this [expletive] phone. Somebody oughta go put a round in his [expletive] head and then do it to his son and do it to his wife and then do it to the rest of Congress."