WHCD shooting suspect faces assassination attempt, firearms charges

Cole Allen, who allegedly charged through a security perimeter at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has been charged with an attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump, which carries a sentence of up to life in prison.

Allen, who appeared in federal court Monday in Washington, D.C. clad in a blue jumpsuit, also faces charges for transporting a firearm and ammunition across state lines as well as discharging a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.

During a brief preliminary hearing in the case, Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh discussed the charges with Allen, as well as his rights as a criminal defendant. Allen accepted the services of two veteran public defenders, Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro attended the hearing, along with the case’s lead prosecutors Jocelyn Ballantine and Charles Jones. They asked Sharbaugh to keep Allen detained through Thursday, when a hearing on his longer-term detention will take place before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya — who once presided over Trump’s own criminal arraignment in the 2020 election case.

“We are asking the court to preventatively detain Mr. Allen,” Ballantine said. “He has been charged with a federal crime of terrorism.”

Allen, whom security video appears to depict charging past magnetometers at the Washington Hilton before law enforcement quickly subdued him, ignited renewed debate over political violence and radicalization , the security measures to protect a president who has already faced two assassination attempts and the future of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner itself.

The Trump administration has insisted that security measures for the dinner were sufficient and executed flawlessly. Cole is accused of opening fire before he was stopped by police and federal agents seconds after breaching the perimeter and before he had reached the floor where the dinner was taking place.

Announcing the charges Monday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was emphatic that the incident represented a security success and not a close call for the president.

“Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they were trained to do,” Blanche said at a press conference at Justice Department headquarters. “This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the United States.”

But the event raised new questions about whether the annual event itself was vulnerable from the start: inside a massive hotel that was still partially open to the public and guests, and where Cole had booked a room in advance to avoid a Secret Service sweep. Scrutiny of the alleged attacker’s movements — he took the train across the country with his weapons to avoid detection — has prompted questions about the way Amtrak passengers are screened. And it’s already stoking debate about tradeoffs of demanding impregnable security in a free society.

Ballantine told the judge that Allen carried a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun, a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, three knives and “other dangerous paraphernalia.”

Investigators indicated in charging documents unsealed Monday that Allen rented his room at the Hilton more than two weeks before the dinner, booking a specific room from April 24 to April 26. He traveled by train from LA to Washington, D.C., stopping briefly in Chicago.

The charge that Allen discharged his firearm is the government’s first assertion that he used his weapon during his charge on law enforcement, but the narrative of the criminal complaint contained no specific claim about him firing or that Allen fired a round that struck a Secret Service officer in the bulletproof vest.

Asked about the omission, Blanche said investigators believe Allen fired his shotgun because an empty cartridge was found in the gun, but the ballistics from the scene are still being analyzed.

“We’re still looking at that and I think that’s something you’ll hear about in the coming days,” he said.

According to the complaint, at 8:40 p.m., “Allen approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun” and “[a]s he did so, U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot.”

Then, the officer who was hit in the chest “drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at Allen, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot.”

While the complaint doesn’t delve into alleged motives for the attack, Blanche said they continue to analyze Allen’s manifesto sent to associates, as well as devices recovered during the investigation. The acting attorney general also argued that journalists have contributed to the threats against the president through “overly critical” news coverage, as have many pundits and strident voices on social media.

“Many people in this room if we’re going to be honest about it … they’re just as guilty as a lot of people on X,” Blanche said, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel and Pirro.

Trump and his allies have also settled on another takeaway from the stymied attack: it underscores the urgent need for construction of the president’s White House ballroom. Within hours of the attack, Trump and an army of supporters argued that the completion of the ballroom — along with its state-of-the-art security measures — was an essential response to a dangerous political environment.

A federal judge recently paused construction on the ballroom , finding that the mega-project needed congressional approval, though he allowed below-ground security work to continue. And last week, a federal appeals court in turn paused that order, permitting construction to continue while the appeal is underway.

The Justice Department quickly picked up Trump’s call , demanding that the group that sued to halt the ballroom withdraw its case in light of the new threat on the president’s life.