Cole Allen tried to assassinate Trump at WHCD event, prosecutors charge

Cole Tomas Allen, who was arrested for allegedly requesting a security checkpoint for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, was charged Monday with the crime of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, who attended that event on Saturday.

Allen, 31, is also charged with carrying a firearm or ammunition in interstate commerce and using a firearm during a crime of violence, a prosecutor said at his arraignment in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“He attempted to assassinate the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump… a terrorist offense,” the prosecutor said in asking Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh to order Allen detained without bail.

One affidavit An FBI special agent presented in support of the charges said Allen had booked a room at the Washington Hilton Hotel on April 6, about three weeks before the dinner was held there. Trump announced his plan to attend the event on March 2.

Allen, from Torrance, California, traveled by train from his hometown for several days and arrived in Washington on Friday afternoon.

While the event was going on in the hotel ballroom, Allen “approached the magnetometer with a long gun and ran,” the agent wrote.

“As he did so, U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. U.S. Secret Service Officer VG was shot once in the chest; Officer VG was wearing a ballistic vest at the time.”

The officer fired his service weapon “at Allen, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not hit,” the affidavit said.

The officer fired his gun five times, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Allen had a 12-gauge shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38-caliber revolver on him when he was arrested, according to testimony.

The prosecutor told the court that Allen was also carrying three knives and other dangerous paraphernalia when he was arrested.

Sharbaugh scheduled a detention hearing for Thursday morning after Allen’s attorney, Tezira Abe, said she agreed with prosecutors to hold the hearing that day. The judge also scheduled a preliminary hearing in the case for Monday.

The court hearing came as concerns were raised about the Secret Service’s handling of Saturday’s incident, when Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance were evacuated after gunshots were heard from the ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel.

“We’ve got to do a few things differently, and we’re already talking about that, and that’s a good thing, and we’ll have a better posture for the next event,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in an interview Monday morning.

“I would like to remind everyone. This was almost the entire president’s cabinet, the president and the vice president himself, and 2,000 members of the media,” Patel said. he said. “This is something the movies don’t write about, this kind of tragedy.”

The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit became involved in the investigation and collected emails, social media posts and conducted interviews to understand Allen’s motivations, Patel said.

Around the same time as the attack, Allen sent an email to his family and former employer “explaining the actions he was about to take,” according to the FBI affidavit.

“I wish I could have said something sooner, but doing so would not have made any of this possible. I offer my sincerest apologies for any trouble I have caused,” read the email titled “Apology and Explanation.”

According to the affidavit, Allen wrote in his email: “As for why I’m doing this: I am a citizen of the United States. The actions of my agents reflect who I am. And I will no longer allow a pedophile, rapist and traitor to cover my hands with his crimes.”

Explicitly excluding Patel, he claimed Trump administration officials were “targets prioritized from highest to lowest.”

According to the affidavit, the email states that Secret Service agents are targets “only when necessary” and that hotel security, Capitol Police officers and National Guard members “are not targets if possible (i.e. unless they are shooting at me).”

There was a “PS” in the note, which was first reported by . New York Post But Allen, who was not included in the affidavit, went on what he called a “rant” about the apparent lack of security measures at the Hilton.

“I walk in with multiple guns and not a single person there thinks I could be a threat,” Allen wrote, according to The Post. “Security for the event is entirely outside, focused on protesters and anyone else arriving at the moment, because apparently no one had thought about what would happen if someone checked in the day before.”

“This level of incompetence is insane, and I sincerely hope that this situation will be corrected by the time this country regains competent leadership,” he wrote.

According to The Post, the letter was signed “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen.”