Donald Trump at White House Correspondents’ Dinner as Cole Allen manifesto reveals plan before shooting
A man accused of opening fire outside a high-profile White House dinner allegedly laid out his intentions in chilling detail just minutes before the attack, including how he planned to carry it out.
While US President Donald Trump and hundreds of guests were attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen had already set up inside the Washington Hilton, armed and unnoticed.
Authorities allege that Allen sent a manifesto to family members outlining both his goals and justifications about 10 minutes before the shooting.
In the document, Allen identified members of the Trump administration as targets and ranked them by seniority.
“Executive officials (except FBI Director Kash Patel): they are prioritized targets from highest to lowest,” he wrote.
He also cited a willingness to accept wider losses if necessary, adding: “To minimize damages, I will use lead instead of slugs (less penetration of walls). If it were absolutely necessary, I would still run over most people here to achieve objectives… but I really hope it doesn’t come to this.”
The articles also offered insight into how Allen justified the attack and framed it as a response to perceived injustice.
“Turning the other cheek is for times when you are under pressure. I am not the person who was raped in the detention camp. I am not the fisherman who was executed without trial,” he wrote.
“Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the crimes of the oppressor.”
“I will no longer allow a pedophile, rapist and traitor to cover my hands with his crimes,” he added.
Perhaps most striking were his claims about how easily he was able to enter the hotel armed.
“For example, what I immediately notice when entering the hotel is a sense of arrogance. I walk in with more than one gun, and not a single person there thinks that I could be a threat,” he wrote.
He criticized what he described as security vulnerabilities, adding: “The security of the event is completely out of whack… because apparently no one had thought about what would happen if they logged in the day before.”
Allen argued that surveillance was so important that a more dangerous attacker could have done much worse.
“Like, if I were an Iranian agent instead of an American citizen, I could bring a fucking Ma Deuce in here and no one would notice. She’s actually crazy.”
Allen’s brother was the first to raise the alarm, and after receiving the document, he contacted the police. Authorities later interviewed other family members who said he had previously made radical political statements and talked about wanting to take action.
Before reaching the main ballroom, Allen was stopped at a security checkpoint.
He is currently being held in custody as investigations into both the attack and the apparent security breach that allowed him to enter the venue with a gun are ongoing.
