Man arrested near US Capitol after driving from California with a guillotine in his truckbed

By Aleena Fayaz, Kaanita Iyer, Richa Sharma, CNN

(CNN) — US Capitol Police said Tuesday they arrested a man with a guillotine in the bed of his pickup truck near the Supreme Court.

Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, of Julian, California, was arrested for carrying a dangerous weapon, police said in a news release.

Shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Capitol Police spotted the pickup truck, “which was illegally parked” along the East Capitol Street, a small street that runs next to the Supreme Court and steps from the US Capitol building, according to the release. Capitol Police shared photos showing the massive guillotine.

Lawmakers were not at the Capitol when the man was arrested as Congress is in recess. But the arrest comes amid concerns around the rising threats of violence to members of Congress and the US government.

In 2025, Capitol Police responded to nearly 15,000 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications directed against Members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol Complex,” according to a January press release. This was a more than a 57% increase from 2024.

Police said Le drove from California to Washington, DC. They are going through his background to learn more about his motivation to come to the nation’s capital.

An Instagram story posted early Tuesday afternoon from an account that appears to belong to Le showed a video of a man sitting down with a guillotine behind him.

“Outside the FBI building, just eating some cheese pizza,” the man said in the video, which was captioned with the words “Guillotine adventures,” and “Capital hill next.”

The account features other politically charged videos of the same man, including a post on August 12, showing the man with the guillotine, which he says he built. In the video, which contains references to conspiracy theories, he goes after “unelected officials making all the decisions of this place and getting us involved in international conflicts and forever wars,” and so-called “people above” them, whose names “our government decided to redact.”

“I am not okay with not knowing who these people are, and you shouldn’t be either,” he says. “The last few months, however, I’ve been working on a solution. I built a guillotine. I’m gonna drive this f**ker to Washington, DC.”

He goes on to to say the guillotine is “strictly for self-defense purposes … I harbor no ill will or intentions of violence towards anyone.”

Last month, Capitol Police arrested a man at the north barricade of the Capitol who they said had a handgun, which is prohibited on Capitol grounds.

CNN has not been able to reach Le for comment. Le’s brother, Kelvin Le, told the Los Angeles Times that the guillotine was a “symbol of disapproval,” adding that Le was unhappy with Democrats and Republicans, and disliked both President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“I don’t think he’d hurt anyone,” said Kelvin Le, who told the LA Times he was surprised to learn of the arrest.

Whether Le’s actions could be protected by the First Amendment “depends on specific factual circumstances,” said CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

“Generally speaking, a person has broad rights under the First Amendment, including speech that is aggressive, distasteful or controversial,” Honig said, adding, “The decisive question is going to be was the object operational or a symbol. Could a person actually have been harmed? How did he display it? And what did he say about it?”

This story was updated with additional information.

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