On the evening of April 25, 2026, President Trump posted on social media a photo of law enforcement detaining a suspect following a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC. The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen, was taken into custody shortly after the disturbance at the high-profile event.
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Cole Thomas Allen, who was arrested on suspicion of breaking into a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner attended by President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials, is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Washington on Monday.
As of 10:30 a.m. ET Monday, there were no public records of charges against Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance and a teacher at C2 Education, which provides tutoring, test prep and college admissions counseling.
But Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that he expected the charges to include assault on a federal officer and discharging a firearm during an assault on a federal officer. Shots were fired outside the banquet hall where a dinner party was being held.
Allen is said to have been armed with a shotgun, handgun and knife and ran through the checkpoint toward the ballroom. President Trump said a Secret Service agent was shot but was not seriously injured. He said the staff were wearing protective gear.
The court hearing comes amid concerns about the Secret Service’s response to Saturday’s evacuation of President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance after gunshots rang out in a ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
“We’re going to have to do some things differently, and we’re already talking about that. That’s a good thing, and we’re going to be better poised for the next event,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in an interview Monday morning.
“I want to remind everyone that this was attended by almost the entire presidential cabinet, the president and vice president themselves, and 2,000 members of the media,” Patel said. “This is something that is not even written about in the movies, this kind of tragedy.”
Patel said the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit was involved in the investigation, collecting emails and social media posts and conducting interviews to gain insight into Allen’s motives.
He said criminal charges against Allen “will show what he did, how he got there, when he got there, how he got down to the arena and the area in question, and how he was able to get through without being seen by security.”
Allen, who was staying at a hotel ahead of the dinner, reportedly sent an email to relatives shortly before the shooting in which he wrote that Trump administration officials were “prioritized and targeted from top to bottom.”
In a “postscript” to the memo, first reported by the New York Post, Allen continued with what he called a “rant” about Hilton’s apparent lack of safety measures.
“I walked in with multiple weapons and not one person considered me a potential threat,” Allen wrote, according to the newspaper. Security for the event is all outside and focused on protesters and those currently arriving, apparently because no one thought about what would happen if someone checked in the day before. ”
“This level of incompetence is outrageous, and I sincerely hope that it will be corrected before this country has competent leadership again,” he wrote.
According to the newspaper, the letter was signed “Cole ‘Cold Force’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen.”
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