Machete suspect nabbed before Trump Capitol visit allegedly ranted about president-elect online
The 44-year-old man charged with trying to smuggle a machete and other knives into the U.S. Capitol on the same day President-elect Donald Trump went to pay his respects as late former President Jimmy Carter lay in state appears to have made a series of anti-Trump posts on social media.
Mel J. Horne faces multiple charges of carrying a dangerous weapon after he tried to get into the Capitol Visitor Center with a machete, two folding knives and a box cutter, according to court documents. Yet, he was released just days before Inauguration Day.
An account on X under his name and linked to a handle associated with his phone number found in court documents shows he made several anti-Trump posts in recent days.
The account referred to both the president-elect and billionaire Elon Musk as "s---bags" while responding to a Trump parody account that asked, "Do you like Elon Musk?"
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Another post on New Year's Eve asserted that the two men "act as consistent enemies of the state." On Dec. 9, the account posted "F--- them!"
Earlier in the day, the account again referred to Trump as an "enemy" but shared a prayerful message.
"I'm praying for all of us," the post reads. "He regardless of how much of an enemy of the American people he really is, is our President elect so I will definitely pray for his health wellbeing and safety as well as that Jesus actually is able to touch his heart and show him the way."
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Another post, in response to a tweet about the Capitol police officer who shot Jan. 6 protester Ashli Babbitt, called for Trump to be prosecuted.
"Trump should be tried because he rallied them folks and sent them in there…" he wrote, adding a pair of emojis. "He sent that girl to die."
Horne's mother previously accused him of falling into drugs and psychosis and asked a court to have him removed from her home and ordered to go to mental health treatment.
Other posts included expletives directed at Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman and Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and the recently acquitted Daniel Penny, who was controversially charged in a subway chokehold case after a man threatened to kill other passengers.
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Capitol police declined to comment on the tweets.
"To protect our cases, we cannot discuss open investigations," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Horne allegedly told Capitol Police that the bladed weapons were landscaping tools after placing them in the X-ray tray at a magnetometer screening point at the Capitol Visitor Center, according to an affidavit.
Officers noted that there were more than 6 inches of snow on the ground and that the city had declared a snow emergency days earlier, then they asked him when his last landscaping job had been.
Read the police affidavit:
"[Horne] advised…that he was not coming from or on his way to a landscaping job," the affidavit continued. "[Horne] stated that he was homeless, and that he carries these items everywhere he travels."
Trump, who was attending the Carter memorial the same day Horne allegedly tried to sneak weapons in, will be inaugurated for his second term on Jan. 20.
A D.C. Superior Court judge granted Horne a conditional release while awaiting trial, court records show. Specifics of his terms of release were not immediately publicly available.
Another man, Adrian Hinton, was also arrested that day after allegedly trying to torch a vehicle near the Grant Memorial. He's due in court later this week.
Horne's arrest report identifies him as a prior felon, although the nature of his prior conviction was not immediately clear. He was previously jailed in 2019, but the Department of Corrections told Fox News Digital it was not authorized to release records on that case. Court records show he faced a number of misdemeanor charges in 2004.
"My son is living in our house (rent free) and in the past year has started to use a substance to get high or alter his mind," his mother, Brenda Horne, alleged in a civil complaint. "Now he is getting violent, and we are afraid and want him removed from our home."
She asked the judge to order his removal from her property and to force him into mental health treatment.
The case was ultimately dismissed without prejudice and Horne agreed to stay away from his parents' home for a year, with the caveat that he was allowed to return only to the property's exterior to take care of his bonsai trees, according to court documents.
Fox News' Julia Bonavita contributed to this report.
