Cole Allen, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
During his arraignment at federal court in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Allen was shackled and wearing an orange jumpsuit. An attorney for Allen entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Last week, Allen was indicted by a federal grand jury on four charges, including attempting to kill the president, assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, discharging a firearm during an act of violence and transporting a firearm across state lines.
He faces life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors allege that Allen was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives when he ran past a group of Secret Service officers standing near a metal detector in the hallway of the Washington Hilton during the annual gala on April 25.
U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot, according to court documents. One Secret Service officer who was wearing a bulletproof vest was shot in the chest but not seriously injured. The Secret Service agent fired five times but did not hit Allen. Allen fell to the ground, and officers detained him.
Allen has agreed to remain in custody until his trial.
Over the weekend, Allen’s lawyers filed a motion asking acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to recuse themselves from the case because they were present at the black-tie event and could be considered victims or witnesses, creating a potential conflict of interest.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden did not rule on that request. The Justice Department has until May 22 to respond to the defense motion.
Who is Cole Allen?
Allen is detained by law enforcement at the Washington Hilton.
(Reuters / REUTERS)
Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from Torrance, Calif., graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2017. He was a member of the Nerf Club and belonged to a campus Christian fellowship, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also reportedly tutored several high school students for a nonprofit in the Torrance area.
He is not registered as a member of any political party. His only political donation on record was a $25 contribution to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign.
How did Allen allegedly prepare for the attack?
Allen in his room at the Washington Hilton on April 25.
(Handout via Getty Images)
According to court documents, Allen bought the shotgun used in the attack last August. He had purchased the pistol he was carrying in 2023.
He traveled from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., by train, a journey that took three days. While en route, he allegedly researched details of the correspondents’ dinner on his phone. He checked into the Washington Hilton the day before the event.
About half an hour before the attack, he took a selfie in his hotel room mirror showing the various weapons he had strapped to his body, the documents say. In the minutes before, Allen allegedly used his cellphone to look up Trump’s location on a website called CivicTracker and to watch live news coverage of the event.
What happened during the dinner?
At approximately 8:40 p.m., about a half an hour after the dinner had started, Allen allegedly ran through the security checkpoint inside a hallway on the terrace level, one floor above where the event was taking place.
The sound of gunshots led to a chaotic scene inside the ballroom, as Secret Service agents rushed the president, Vice President JD Vance and other members of the Trump administration to safety. Hundreds of other guests ducked under tables.
After the incident, there were some brief indications that the dinner might continue as planned, but the ballroom was eventually cleared. Trump later said the event would be rescheduled within 30 days.
How close did Allen get to Trump?
President Trump is escorted out by security personnel at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
(REUTERS / Reuters)
Allen was stopped near the top of a set of stairs leading to the ballroom level. The president was seated at a table on the opposite side of the room from the entrance closest to where Allen was apprehended.
Blanche defended the security response to the attack.
“I want to make this clear: This man was a floor above the ballroom with hundreds of federal agents between him and the president of the United States,” Blanche said. “Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they were trained to do.”
Did Allen shoot a Secret Service officer?
A screengrab from the video of alleged shooter Cole Allen being confronted at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
(FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation/Youtube)
In an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union earlier this month, Pirro said that a buckshot pellet was recovered from the bulletproof vest worn by a Secret Service agent who was shot during the attack.
“We now can establish that a pellet that came from the buckshot from the defendant’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun was intertwined with the fiber of the vest of the Secret Service officer,” Pirro said. “It is definitively his bullet.”
Pirro had posted a video on social media, saying it shows Allen “shoot a U.S. Secret Service officer.”
“There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire,” Pirro wrote in a post on X.
The surveillance footage appears to show Allen run through a magnetometer with a long gun as one officer draws his weapon and fires multiple times. It’s unclear from the video whether Allen’s weapon fires, or which officer may have been struck.
The footage also appears to show Allen being followed by a K-9 officer into an open door in the hallway moments before running through the checkpoint. The K-9 officer and its handler walk away, and seconds later, Allen sprints through the metal detectors with the shotgun.
Pirro said the video “also shows Allen casing the area” the day before the alleged attack.
What weapons did he have?
Weapons found on Cole Allen, according to the Justice Department.
(U.S, Dept. of Justice)
According to court documents, Allen was carrying a 12-gauge pump shotgun and .38 caliber pistol, with a significant amount of additional ammunition at the time of the incident. He was also allegedly carrying two knives and four daggers.
In an affidavit, prosecutors said there was “one spent cartridge” in the barrel of Allen’s shotgun when he was arrested.
In an email Allen purportedly sent out before the attack, he said that he was using buckshot, a form of shotgun ammunition often used by hunters, to minimize casualties.
What else did the email say?
According to the affidavit, Allen sent an email to family and friends just a few minutes before he charged the security checkpoint. In the message, he repeatedly apologized to different groups of people to whom he lied during his preparations for the attack and for any fallout that may come afterward.
Though the message doesn’t mention Trump by name, it does reference allegations made against the president.
“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” Allen purportedly wrote.
The email also specifically labels members of the Trump administration as “targets” and says that the Secret Service and other security officers are targets “only if necessary.”
He allegedly signed the message with the moniker “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
What’s next?
The next court hearing in the case — a status conference — is scheduled for June 29.