Trump delegate indicted on weapons, child pornography charges

[May 20, 2016]  By Julia Harte
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Maryland man who is a delegate for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been indicted for illegally shipping explosives, owning a machine gun and producing child pornography, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

 

Caleb Bailey, 30, was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Wednesday. He was elected to be a delegate for Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and is still listed as one on the state's board of elections website.

Joe Cluster, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, confirmed Bailey had been indicted and told Reuters the party was asking Bailey to resign from the delegation.

"I don't know too much about him beyond what I've read," said Cluster, who declined to comment further.

Bailey had hundreds of illegal weapons stored in a bunker beneath his garage, including dozens of machine guns, smokeless grenades and gas canisters, along with ready-to-eat meals, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

Telephone calls and emails seeking comment from Bailey, from the Trump campaign and from the Maryland board of elections were not returned on Thursday.

Trump has been working to unify the Republican party going into its presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in July.

In March, a New Hampshire man who co-chaired Trump's veterans coalition in the state was extradited to Nevada to face charges of helping organize the high-profile 2014 armed standoff with federal agents at the ranch of Cliven Bundy.

The four-count indictment against Bailey alleges that he used a minor to "engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography" and illegally owned a machine gun.

Authorities became aware of Bailey after he tried to ship explosives and ammunition from Maryland to Wisconsin through the U.S. mail in February, said an affidavit filed by a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Some of the types of cartridges Bailey was sending to Wisconsin are no longer used by the U.S. military because they are too dangerous, the law enforcement official said, so shipping them was "not only illegal, but posed a significant public risk."

The Wisconsin recipient is under investigation as well, according to the official.

Bailey attempted to ship five such packages in total, but one broke open at the post office, prompting the facility to call law enforcement, according to the affidavit.

(Reporting by Julia Harte and Ginger Gibson; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Leslie Adler)

[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.