
Investigators found more than 800 rounds of ammunition in the car of the man accused of scaling the White House fence and sprinting inside the building, a federal prosecutor said Monday. A machete and two hatchets also were found. The president and his family were not at the residence. Sources say the Secret Service is coming under intense scrutiny after the breach.
The accused intruder, former soldier Omar J. Gonzalez, had been arrested last July in Virginia with a carful of weapons, authorities said, and the federal prosecutor said Monday in court that Gonzalez had had a map with the White House and the Masonic Temple in Alexandria circled.
Gonzalez was a veteran, and the Army says he served from 1997 until his discharge in 2003, and again from 2005 to December 2012, when he retired due to disability.
Separately, Wythe County Deputy Commonwealth Attorney David Saliba said Gonzales also had two powerful rifles, four handguns and other guns and ammunition in his Ford Bronco when troopers stopped him in southwestern Virginia on July 19.
Oddly, less than 24 hours after Gonzalez’s arrest, a second man was taken into custody after he drove up to a White House gate and refused to leave, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said.