Washington, April 27 — Cole Tomas Allen, the alleged shooter who turned the White House Correspondents' Association dinner—featuring U.S. President Donald Trump—into chaos, will be formally charged today.
Allen, 31, a California resident identified as a mechanical engineer, computer specialist, video game developer, and teacher, will be charged this Monday with use of a firearm during a violent crime and assault on a federal agent with a dangerous weapon, said U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Blanche also indicated the day before that additional charges could be filed depending on the motive behind the attack and the evidence found during the ongoing investigation.
Authorities found anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on Allen's social media, and before the attack he sent some messages to family members, one of which alerted authorities, CBS News reported.
It is said that Allen spent a lot of time secretly acquiring weapons, including purchasing a shotgun from a seller in Torrance, California, eight months before the attack, and a semi-automatic pistol two years before.
Representative Ro Khanna (California Democrat) urged lawmakers yesterday to create a bipartisan national commission on political violence following the shooting incident at the annual correspondents' dinner.
"Seeing journalists (...) ducking under the tables was simply horrific," Khanna said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
The shooting last Saturday at the Washington Hotel, venue of the annual press event, reignited the debate on political violence across the country, which, in the view of Americans, has surged in recent years.
The incident during the most visible journalistic event of the year in the United States occurred in the hotel lobby, and no injuries were reported among the more than 2,000 attendees.
Trump was hastily evacuated by the Secret Service from the dinner, in which he was participating as U.S. president for the first time.
The Washington Hilton hotel has a historical precedent that is being remembered now: on March 30, 1981, it was the scene of the attack by John Hinckley Jr. against then-Republican President Ronald Reagan, which forced a review of presidential security protocols.
This incident adds to a series of security threats Trump has been exposed to in the past two years: in July 2024, when he was still a presidential candidate, an attempt was made on his life, but he only suffered a scratch on one of his ears; and in September of the same year, Ryan Routh—sentenced to life imprisonment—was able to access the perimeter of the golf club in Mar-a-Lago, pointing a rifle that he never fired.
Last February, another armed man tried to enter the Mar-a-Lago area but was shot by the Secret Service.
