WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Monday charged 31-year-old Torrance resident Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate President Trump after rushing past security at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner in Washington on Saturday.
The domestic terrorism charge, announced during a brief arraignment hearing in federal court in Washington and detailed in a subsequent charging document, carries a potential sentence of life in prison for the Caltech graduate and high school tutor.
Prosecutors also charged Allen with transporting firearms across state lines while traveling by train from California to Washington and with discharging a firearm during the incident at the Washington Hilton, where officials said a federal agent was shot in his ballistic vest.
In the charging document, prosecutors also detailed an email Allen allegedly sent to family members just as he was preparing to breach the event perimeter, in which he allegedly wrote that top Trump administration officials were his target but that he was willing to “go through” others at the event to reach them.
Allen was instead taken down by agents shortly after rushing past them and before descending stairs and entering a ballroom where Trump and other top administration officials were seated. No officials were injured during the incident, which the White House described as the latest in a string of attempts on Trump’s life.
Federal public defenders assigned to represent Allen did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Allen could not be reached for comment. A person previously reached at the Allen family home in Torrance — which was searched by the FBI over the weekend — declined to comment.
At the morning hearing, Asst. U.S. Atty. Jocelyn Ballantine said Allen “traveled across multiple state lines with a firearm” and “attempted to assassinate the president with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.”
Top administration officials — including acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel — echoed those claims at a subsequent news briefing. Blanche described Allen as a serious threat, while also downplaying his proximity to the president and the likelihood that he ever could have caused harm to administration officials.
“Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they are trained to do,” Blanche said. He said Allen had either fallen or was tackled to the ground while under fire from law enforcement.
Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Allen was charged with attempting to assassinate the president because of his writings — which Trump and others in the administration have referred to as a “manifesto.”
Blanche said officials have seized devices from Allen’s hotel room and his home in Torrance, which could add additional context to his motivations, but officials were not prepared to discuss what may have been found on those devices. Pirro said additional charges were pending.
Blanche emphasized that the investigation into the incident is in its early stages. It still isn’t clear, for example, who fired the shot that struck the Secret Service agent.
“We’re still looking at that,” Blanche said.
In the charging document, prosecutors included the text of the manifesto — an emailed document they allege Allen had scheduled to automatically send to family members around the time he entered the secured area at the hotel, in which he declared that Trump administration officials were his targets.
In the emailed document, titled by the writer as an “Apology and Explanation,” Allen allegedly wrote that Trump administration officials would be “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest” in terms of how he targeted them.
“I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” he wrote, according to the charging document.
Allen allegedly wrote that Secret Service agents were “targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible”; that police, hotel employees and hotel guests were not his targets; and that he would be using buckshot to “minimize casualties,” according to the document.
“I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it,” he wrote, according to the documents. Allen, a tutor in Torrance, also apologized to his family, colleagues and students, but said he felt he had to act as a U.S. citizen represented by the Trump administration.
“What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he allegedly wrote.
The charging document also described the initial moments when Allen entered the secured area and a Secret Service agent was allegedly shot in his ballistic vest.
Prosecutors wrote that federal agents “heard a loud gunshot” as Allen rushed through a metal detector holding a long gun, that a Secret Service officer identified only by the initials “V.G.” was “shot once in the chest” in a ballistic vest, and that he “drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at ALLEN, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot.”
Allen was found in possession of a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38-caliber pistol, the document alleged.
Prosecutors requested Allen be held in detention. U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh, who presided over the hearing, set a second hearing for Thursday morning to determine whether Allen will be held in custody.
Federal public defenders assigned to Allen after he submitted a financial affidavit to the court requesting representation noted that Allen has no prior criminal record, a factor in determining a criminal suspect’s handling before trial.
Those attorneys — Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm — did not respond to a request for comment after the hearing.
Allen, clad in a royal blue jumpsuit, showed no visible injuries and said little at the hearing, aside from identifying himself and acknowledging that he understood the legal proceedings.
Allen had allegedly outlined his disdain for and intent to kill Trump administration officials in the manifesto written before the correspondents’ dinner. According to the New York Post, Allen in that document described himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot any of the more than 2,600 people in attendance to reach officials.
Those at the event included hundreds of journalists and many Trump administration officials — including Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump.
Allen had booked a room at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner took place.
Trump in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday said he “wasn’t worried” at the sound of gunshots. “We live in a crazy world,” he said.
Trump, who has been dogged by questions about his relationship with the deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein throughout his second term, bristled at the shooter’s reference to a “pedophile” and “rapist” in the manifesto.
“I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody,” Trump said in the interview with CBS reporter Norah O’Donnell. “I’m not a pedophile.”
He also railed against O’Donnell for quoting that portion of the manifesto, saying it was inappropriate to do so.
During an earlier news conference Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House was considering whether to revise Secret Service protocols for large events attended by the president, despite his satisfaction with the agency’s performance at Saturday’s event.
Leavitt said the Secret Service successfully neutralized the suspect and cleared the president, first lady and vice president from the room within minutes.
Still, with major celebrations planned around the nation’s 250th anniversary, the World Cup and the Olympics, discussions on potential updates to Secret Service plans will begin this week, led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Leavitt said. For security reasons, the results of those discussions will likely be kept a secret, she added.
“If adjustments need to be made to protect the president, they will be made,” she said.
Leavitt also called on Congress to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Secret Service, after a political impasse has led to an historic 73-day lapse in such funding.
Leavitt also suggested anti-Trump rhetoric from the president’s detractors played a role in him being targeted and needed to be toned down.
“It is inspiring these crazy people across the country to target not just the president, but those who work for him and those who support him,” Leavitt said.
“Nobody is recent years has faced more bullets and violence than President Trump,” she added. “This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators — yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party, and even some in the media.”
Blanche echoed that argument — pointing blame at the media, many of whom had been in the ballroom with Trump.
“When you have reporters, when you have media just being overly critical and calling the president horrible names for no reason and without evidence, without proof, it shouldn’t surprise us that this type of rhetoric takes place,” he said.
