Court documents made public this week have laid bare chilling new details of an alleged assassination plot targeting former U.S. President Donald Trump, revealing that the suspect snapped a selfie in his hotel room just minutes before launching an armed attack at a high-profile Washington media gala. Prosecutors outlined the sequence of events in a federal court filing submitted Wednesday, laying out the premeditated steps 31-year-old Cole Allen, a highly educated California teacher, took in his bid to attack Trump and senior members of his administration.
According to the filing, Allen’s attempted attack unfolded shortly after 8:30 p.m. this past Saturday. After traveling from California to the nation’s capital via a scenic cross-country train route through Chicago, Allen checked into the Washington Hilton, where the annual media gala was set to take place in the hotel’s basement ballroom. Court records show that before leaving his room, Allen spent his final pre-attack minutes reviewing online updates of Trump’s public schedule, assembling a weapons arsenal that included a pump-action shotgun, a handgun, multiple knives, and ammunition, and posing for a mirror selfie captured on his cellphone. The surviving photograph shows Allen dressed in all black with a red tie, visibly carrying a knife, a shoulder holster for his handgun, and an ammunition bag.
Before departing his room, Allen had pre-scheduled an email to be sent to his friends and family that contained a manifesto justifying his planned attack, which prosecutors described as an act of “unfathomable malice.” In the message, Allen laid out a ranked target list of Trump administration officials in attendance, prioritizing them from highest to lowest rank, and clarified that he hoped to avoid harming Secret Service agents, other law enforcement officers, or innocent hotel guests. Court documents also show Allen documented his surprise at the hotel’s lax security during his stay, writing on his personal phone that he had walked into the building with multiple weapons without any staff raising a single red flag. During his train journey, he even took time to note his appreciation for the changing American landscape, writing that the woodlands of Pennsylvania looked like “vast fairy lands filled with tiny trickling creeks.”
Once he reached the hotel entrance near the ballroom, Allen discarded his outer long coat, drew his shotgun, and sprinted through a set of building metal detectors. Prosecutors confirm Allen fired the shotgun toward the stairs leading down to the ballroom, where Trump and other senior officials were already gathered. A responding Secret Service agent returned fire, shooting five times but missing Allen entirely. The suspect fell to the ground during the chaotic aftermath, suffered only a minor knee injury, and was quickly tackled and detained by security personnel. No bystanders or attendees were killed in the incident.
The new details emerged as part of a prosecution request to a Washington federal court to deny bail for Allen, arguing he should remain in custody ahead of his trial. Prosecutors noted that Allen’s political motivation for the attack would persist as long as he maintains ideological disagreement with the U.S. government, making him a continued danger to the community if released.
This incident marks the third alleged assassination attempt targeting Trump in less than two years. Following the attempt, the White House has blamed Democratic political leaders and national media outlets for inciting political extremism against the former president. At the same time, the 79-year-old Trump has drawn widespread criticism for breaking decades of Washington political norms with his consistent violent rhetoric directed at political opponents, journalists, foreign leaders, and immigrants.