Police are investigating whether a man arrested with rifles, ammunition and drugs near the Democratic Convention may have been plotting to kill Barack Obama.
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Suspects: Tharin Gartrell And Nathan Johnson
Officers in Denver, Colorado, have confirmed three men are being held in connection with drugs and weapons offences.
Sky News' political editor Adam Boulton, in Denver, said one of the group is reported to have made comments alerting police to a potential assassination plot.
Security services are confident there is no "credible" threat to Mr Obama.
Tharin Gartrell, 28, was arrested following a traffic stop for erratic driving early on Sunday by police in the eastern Denver suburb of Aurora.
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Convention security 'pretty intense'
Detective Marcus Dudley, of Aurora Police Department, said: "The sergeant discovered inside his truck a bullet-proof vest, two rifles, ammunition, walkie-talkies and drugs."
Police alerted federal authorities, who used additional information to arrest Nathan Johnson, 32, in Aurora.
A third man, Shawn Robert Adolf, 33, was arrested at an Aurora hotel.
Police said that when they knocked on the door of the hotel room, he jumped out of a sixth-floor window, landed on an awning and ran off.
Officers later found him with a broken ankle.
Officials with the FBI, Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Aurora police are to hold a news conference later.
Law enforcers in Denver are now trying to find out how valid the reported threats to Mr Obama were.
"It could also turn out that these were nothing but a bunch of knuckleheads," the US government official said.
Democratic delegates have gathered in Denver for a party convention that will see Mr Obama formally confirmed as the first black man to run for President in US history.
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Obama due in Denver on Wednesday
The Senator, whose family spoke at the Democratic Convention, is due to arrive in Denver on Wednesday at the earliest.
Boulton described security as "pretty intense" in the build-up.
He said: "The fact that Barack Obama is the first African-American to become a nominee does raise some concerns."
One of the men arrested is reported to have links with a white supremacist organisation.
US Attorney Troy Eid said security services are "confident that there is no credible threat to candidate, convention or city of Denver".
Boulton added: "It is unknown whether the absence of a threat is because the group are in custody or because they were never frankly up to it."
It does appear, he said, they are a "fairly ramshackle bunch of redneck supremacists".
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Source: News.Sky.com
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