A 31-year-old man charged in connection with a violent attempted breach at last month’s high-profile White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington D.C. has entered a formal not guilty plea to federal charges that include firearms violations and a plot to assassinate former and current U.S. President Donald Trump.
Cole Tomas Allen, the defendant named in the indictment, faces two separate federal gun charges on top of the attempted assassination count: illegal use of a firearm during a violent criminal act, and interstate transportation of a firearm with the explicit intent to carry out a felony offense. The case stems from an April incident that unfolded at the Washington Hilton hotel, where the annual media gathering was set to welcome Trump, top administration officials, and hundreds of working journalists.
According to court documents and reporting from CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. partner, Allen made his first in-person court appearance on Monday before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, who will oversee all future proceedings in the case. During the hearing, held in federal court in Washington, Allen appeared in a standard-issue orange inmate jumpsuit, with shackles secured to both his wrists and ankles.
Prosecutors’ official account of the incident lays out a premeditated plan: Authorities say Allen departed his Torrance, California, home near Los Angeles on April 21, traveling cross-country by train via Chicago before arriving in the nation’s capital. Hours before the dinner was scheduled to begin, prosecutors allege Allen documented his preparations in photos taken in his local hotel room around 8:03 p.m. EST. The images, included in a U.S. government court memorandum, show Allen wearing formal attire alongside a shoulder holster, pliers, wire cutters, multiple strapped weapons including a sheathed knife, and a bag loaded with ammunition, posing in front of a mirror. Over the next 30 minutes, prosecutors say Allen accessed multiple websites to pull up live streams of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner to confirm the event’s timeline before leaving his hotel.
When Allen reached the Washington Hilton, prosecutors allege he attempted to rush through an outer security checkpoint, sprinting through a metal detector while holding a loaded shotgun in a raised, ready position with both hands. In the ensuing confrontation, Allen exchanged gunfire with a U.S. Secret Service agent, striking the agent who was ultimately protected from serious injury or death by his bulletproof vest. Law enforcement agents tackled Allen just a few feet short of a staircase leading directly to the ballroom where the dinner was just getting underway, with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, cabinet members, and dozens of senior White House officials already inside the venue. Immediately after shots were fired, the president, vice president, and other senior officials were urgently evacuated from the ballroom as a security precaution.
A key development unfolded during Monday’s initial hearing: Allen’s defense team has formally requested that Judge McFadden disqualify the entire Washington office of U.S. attorneys, including D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, from participating in the prosecution. The defense is also pushing to remove Attorney General Todd Blanche from any role in the case. Eugene Ohm, lead defense counsel for Allen, argued that both Pirro and Blanche have publicly positioned themselves as victims of the April attack, making it improper for them to lead the prosecution against his client. Judge McFadden has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to file a formal response to the disqualification request by June 22.