Alleged would-be Trump assassin acted ‘weird’
Michael Sandford was unlike most supporters of candidate
As he waited in line for nine hours to see Donald Trump, Gregg Donovan slowly began to get a strange vibe from the young man standing next to him.
Donovan, a down-on-his-luck Hollywood entertainer turned telegenic Trump supporter, had driven for four hours to hear the presumptive GOP presidential candidate speak at a Las Vegas rally.
So had Michael Steven Sandford, but for very different reasons.
“Why do you like Donald Trump?” Sandford asked Donovan shortly af- ter they met in line inside the glitzy Treasure Island Casino.
The question wasn’t unusual for a Trump rally, but Sandford was. Unlike most other early arrivals, he was young: just 20 years old. And unlike others, he had a British accent.
But it was his reaction to Donovan’s enthusiasm for Trump that suggested Sandford was seriously out of place.
Donovan, 56, told the young man how he had met Trump and the billionaire had promised to get him his job back. Sandford responded by looking away, almost rolling his eyes. And when Donovan returned minutes later dressed in a black top hat and red tailcoat — both plastered with Trump memorabilia — Sandford appeared to shudder. “He seemed a little bit repulsed,” Donovan told the Washington Post.
Sandford was acting “weird” and “nervous,” waving his hands and looking uncomfortable, Donovan said. He got upset when several men appeared like they were trying to jump ahead of him in line.
Hours later, as Trump delivered his speech, Sandford allegedly tried to grab a gun from a Las Vegas Police officer to shoot the candidate.
“Sandford told (the Secret Service) he drove here from California on June 16, 2016 to kill Trump,” according to a federal criminal complaint filed Monday. “Sandford claimed he had been planning to attempt to kill Trump for about a year but decided to act on this occasion because he finally felt confident about trying it.”
Sandford was arrested before he could pull the police officer’s gun from its holster. He has been charged with an “act of violence on restricted grounds,” punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
As of Tuesday morning, Trump had not tweeted or spoken publicly about the incident.
Sandford is due back in court July 5.