Law enforcement are investigating how a suspect got a firearm into the venue where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held Saturday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The suspect — who was taken into custody Saturday night after a shooting that rattled lawmakers, administration officials and reporters — is not cooperating with law enforcement, he said. Neither President Donald Trump nor any other attendees of the dinner were harmed during the shooting, though a Secret Service agent required hospitalization.
“We’re still understanding the security protocols that led to him being being able to have firearms in that hotel,” Blanche said Sunday morning during an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Blanche said he expected there would be more information on the suspect’s firearms “in the coming days.”
Blanche added that law enforcement believes the suspect was targeting administration officials based on a preliminary assessment, but he did not share further details.
Administration officials including Trump and Vice President JD Vance were quickly evacuated from the venue after shots were heard outside the ballroom, and the gala’s planned events were later canceled. Trump initially insisted the show would go on but later said he’d been told by law enforcement the event could not continue as planned. He said the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.
As of Sunday morning, law enforcement working the case — including the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and local officials — had executed various search warrants, including on “devices recovered from the suspect,” Blanche said. He said law enforcement was “actively talking to witnesses that knew him” as officials investigated the suspect’s motives.
U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Saturday night that the suspect would be charged in court Monday with assaulting a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Blanche said Sunday that “there’s a lot of federal charges that could be in play beyond those two charges” pending investigation.
The suspect — who has been identified by multiple news outlets as 31-year-old California resident Cole Tomas Allen — took a train from California to Chicago and then a subsequent train from Chicago to Washington, Blanche said.
Law enforcement believe the suspect checked into the Washington Hilton — the venue that has for years hosted the annual gala and where a would-be assassin shot former President Ronald Reagan in 1981 — on Friday, Blanche said on CNN.
Blanche also said law enforcement understand that the suspect shot a U.S. Secret Service officer who was taken to the hospital in the wake of the shooting, but he could not say whether the officer had yet been released. Trump said Saturday night that the officer was “saved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously a very good bulletproof vest” and was “doing great” as of the president’s last conversation with him.
Jeffery Carroll, the interim chief of the Washington police department, said the suspect, who charged a security checkpoint, had “a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives” in his possession.
“Look, this isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms,” Blanche said. “It appears he purchased these firearms the past couple years. We don’t know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C.”
Still, the acting attorney general was adamant that Saturday night’s outcome constituted “a massive success story” for law enforcement, although he said law enforcement will make adjustments as necessary.
Trump, meanwhile, took to social media Sunday morning to insist that the shooting “would never have happened” at the new White House ballroom he’s constructing in place of the demolished East Wing, adding, “It cannot be built fast enough!”
“Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, criticizing a lawsuit which is seeking to halt the project until Trump receives Congressional approval for the $400 million ballroom. A federal appeals court decided earlier this month that work could continue on the site after a lower court judge ordered the administration to pause construction.
Oz Pearlman, the mentalist who was slated to perform at Saturday night’s gala, described the experience as chaos in a Sunday morning interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Pearlman — who was performing onstage for Trump, first lady Melania Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the time of the shooting — said it was initially unclear whether the president and the first lady had been injured.
Pearlman said he initially thought that a bomb was about to explode when law enforcement rushed the stage to evacuate Trump and other officials.
“In the room, when there’s commotion of that sort, you tend to think — we’ve been to a lot of events — is this a medical emergency? Is somebody having a heart attack? Because you heard a noise, it wasn’t gunshots. I wasn’t sure if it was a tray,” he told host Dana Bash.
Pearlman said he later saw Vance backstage, who “looked very calm” and “was very assuring.”
