WASHINGTON: A Pennsylvania doctor arrested with weapons and ammunition at President Donald Trump’s Washington hotel wanted to meet the president and bring down “big pharmacy,” authorities said on Friday.
Bryan Moles, 43, of Edinboro, faces weapons charges after police found an assault rifle, pistol and 90 rounds of ammunition early on Wednesday in his BMW at the Trump International Hotel, where he had checked in, according to a statement and documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A District of Columbia Superior Court judge released Moles from custody on Thursday but ordered him to stay away from the White House and Trump’s hotel, prosecutors said.
Moles, who faces a U.S. charge of unlawful possession of a firearm and a local charge of unlawful transportation of a firearm, is due in federal court for a hearing on Friday afternoon.
The former Navy corpsman’s arrest after Pennsylvania authorities passed on a tip to the U.S. Secret Service and Washington police averted a “potential disaster,” the capital city’s police chief said.
Moles had told an acquaintance in voicemails that he was heading to the White House and would stay there until he met Trump, according to a criminal complaint.
Moles said he “was a refugee intent on bringing down big pharmacy and big business medicine,” the filing said.
He told the acquaintance his car “looked like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph was going on a camping trip.” McVeigh was executed for the deadly 1996 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, and Rudolph was found guilty of a bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that killed one person.
The complaint said Moles told officers he was a recovering alcoholic and had brought the rifle to Washington to have it customized for his son.
Police found marijuana and a vaporizer smoking device in his hotel room bathroom and smelled marijuana there, according to the document.
Police also found $10,000 in the room’s safe. Moles told officers he had $4.19 left in his checking account, an important number to him because it corresponded to the date of the April 19, 1996, Oklahoma City attack, the filing said.
Moles said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder related to his military service and could not take anti-psychotic medications because they made him suicidal, the complaint said.
He had worked at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which said in a statement that he had previously been put on administrative leave. The timing of the leave was unclear.
