The California man charged with an attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump in the midst of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., pleaded not guilty while appearing in a court in the capital to all four charges on Monday morning.
An exhausted-looking Cole Tomas Allen was bound by his hands and ankles and donning an orange jumpsuit when he made a second appearance in Federal District Court in Washington. The Monday appearance was to be formally arraigned before a judge after being handed four counts after he allegedly breached security and fired shots as he attempted to enter the event at the Washington Hilton on April 25, around 8:30 p.m., as the dinner was getting underway.
Charges the 31-year-old Cat Tech graduate is facing include attempting to assassinate the president; assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon; transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony; and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. The assassination attempt count could lead to a lifetime prison sentence.
In court on Monday, Allen’s federal public defender Eugene Ohm requested that Judge McFadden see that the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro be removed from the case in their professional capacity as they were attendees at the dinner. Ohm said that the notion that they would prosecute the case where they may consider themselves victims was “wholly inappropriate.”
In late April, Allen planned to drive from California to the annual event at the Hilton, book a room on the 10th floor of the Hilton — incidentally, the same hotel where President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981 — then storm through security and into the dinner with a shotgun and pistol, killing as many Trump Administration officials as possible, the Justice Department said in court. His attempt was thwarted by security that night, who took him down before he entered the banquet hall. But not before, according to the DOJ, he opened fire and struck a Secret Service agent in the ballistic vest he’d been wearing; the officer survived the shooting.
Questions have since been raised as to how an attempted assassin would be able to get so close to the event being attended by a huge number of administration officials.
The DOJ has presented evidence in court that Allen had emailed friends a hierarchy of the administration officials he planned to target. He also allegedly sent a long manifesto to family, referring to himself a “Friendly Federal Assassin” and explaining his intent to target the Trump administration over his political grievances.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the weeks since, Trump and many of his allies in politics and the media have been pointing to the assassination attempt as a reason to build Trump’s sought-after ballroom at the White House. arguing it would be very secure. A judge shut down the planned build, citing the lack of Congressional approval for the project.
