Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the suspect was likely targeting administration officials.
04/26/2026
Law enforcement are investigating how a suspect got a firearm into the venue where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was held Saturday, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The suspect — who was taken into custody Saturday night after a shooting that rattled lawmakers, administration officials and reporters — is not cooperating with law enforcement, he said. Neither President Donald Trump nor any other attendees of the dinner were harmed during the shooting, though a Secret Service agent required hospitalization.
“We’re still understanding the security protocols that led to him being able to have firearms in that hotel,” Blanche said Sunday morning during an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Blanche said he expected there would be more information on the suspect’s firearms “in the coming days.”
As details about the incident at the Washington Hilton continued to surface, Blanche said on NBC’s"Meet the Press” that law enforcement believes the suspect was targeting administration officials “likely including the president” based on a preliminary assessment, but he did not share further details.
Administration officials including Trump and Vice President JD Vance were quickly evacuated from the venue after shots were heard outside the ballroom, and the gala’s planned events were later canceled. Trump initially insisted the show would go on but later said he’d been told by law enforcement the event could not continue as planned. He said the dinner would be rescheduled within 30 days.
As of Sunday morning, law enforcement working the case — including the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and local officials — had executed various search warrants, including on “devices recovered from the suspect,” Blanche said. He said law enforcement was “actively talking to witnesses that knew him” as officials investigated the suspect’s motives.
Agents stand guard after a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, on April 25, 2026. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Law enforcement are looking into a manifesto Cole Tomas Allen allegedly sent to his family members minutes before the shooting, of which his brother notified local police in New London, Connecticut, according to a White House official. The official said the manifesto stated that he wanted to target administration officials.
Secret Service and Montgomery County Police interviewed Allen’s sister at her home in Rockville, Maryland, and said she confirmed her brother had purchased three firearms. Allen’s sister also told police he had a tendency to make radical statements, per the official.
During a Sunday morning phone interview with Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich — who was on stage with the president at the time of the shooting — Trump said the suspected shooter was “a very troubled guy.” He added that the suspect “hates Christians” according to his manifesto, which POLITICO has not independently verified.
“He had a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while,” Trump said. “It was a religious thing, it was strongly anti-Christian.”
The alleged shooter “never even came close to getting by the doors or getting through the doors,” Trump told Heinrich, who is set to take over the White House Correspondents’ Association as president in July.
Trump wanted to go on with the night’s plans but decided to reschedule once law enforcement informed him that the ballroom was no longer secure since the doors had been opened for the evacuation.
U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Saturday night that the suspect would be charged in court Monday with assaulting a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and using a firearm during a crime of violence. Blanche said Sunday that “there’s a lot of federal charges that could be in play beyond those two charges” pending investigation.
The suspect — who has been identified by multiple news outlets as a 31-year-old California resident — took a train from California to Chicago and then a subsequent train from Chicago to Washington, Blanche said.
Law enforcement believe the suspect checked into the Washington Hilton — the venue that has for years hosted the annual gala and where a would-be assassin shot then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981 — on Friday, Blanche said on CNN.
A person looks out of their window as law enforcement respond to an incident at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, on April 25, 2026. | Allison Robbert/AP
Blanche also said law enforcement understand that the suspect shot a U.S. Secret Service officer who was taken to the hospital in the wake of the shooting. Trump said Saturday night that the officer was “saved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously a very good bulletproof vest” and was “doing great” as of the president’s last conversation with him.
U.S. Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi confirmed in a Sunday morning statement that the officer had been discharged from the hospital and that his ballistic vest had helped “avoid a potential tragedy” during the shooting.
“While the FBI is leading the criminal investigation, the U.S. Secret Service is conducting a comprehensive review of the defendant’s background and networks to better understand his motivations, leaving no detail unexamined,” Guglielmi said.
In wake of Saturday night’s events, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested a briefing from the Secret Service, according to a panel spokesperson. The committee previously held an oversight hearing around the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024 with the former Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle. She resigned the next day in the wake of the tumultuous grilling.
Blanche also said he was confident law enforcement would be able to ensure King Charles III’s visit to the U.S. this week would remain safe. A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace said Sunday that “a number of discussions will be taking place throughout the day” with U.S. officials to determine to what extent the shooting “may or may not impact on the operational planning for the visit.”
Hill leadership circles are beginning to discuss heightened security protocols for the king’s Tuesday address to Congress, according to six people familiar with the matter. British embassy officials have been in communication with Hill leadership staff, two of the people said.
Jeffery Carroll, the interim chief of the Washington police department, said the suspect, who charged a security checkpoint, had “a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives” in his possession.
“Look, this isn’t about, in my mind, changing the law or making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms,” Blanche said. “It appears he purchased these firearms the past couple years. We don’t know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C.”
Still, the acting attorney general was adamant that Saturday night’s outcome constituted “a massive success story” for law enforcement, although he said law enforcement will make adjustments as necessary.
Trump, meanwhile, took to social media Sunday morning to insist that the shooting “would never have happened” at the new White House ballroom he’s constructing in place of the demolished East Wing, adding, “It cannot be built fast enough!”
“Nothing should be allowed to interfere with with its construction,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, criticizing a lawsuit which is seeking to halt the project until Trump receives congressional approval for the $400 million ballroom. A federal appeals court decided earlier this month that work could continue on the site after a lower court judge ordered the administration to pause construction.
Oz Pearlman, the mentalist who was slated to perform at Saturday night’s gala, described the experience as chaos in a Sunday morning interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Pearlman — who was performing onstage for Trump, first lady Melania Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at the time of the shooting — said it was initially unclear whether the president and the first lady had been injured.
Pearlman said he initially thought that a bomb was about to explode when law enforcement rushed the stage to evacuate Trump and other officials.
“In the room, when there’s commotion of that sort, you tend to think — we’ve been to a lot of events — is this a medical emergency? Is somebody having a heart attack? Because you heard a noise, it wasn’t gunshots. I wasn’t sure if it was a tray,” he told host Dana Bash.
Pearlman said he later saw Vance backstage, who “looked very calm” and “was very assuring.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he was talking to activist Kerry Kennedy when chaos broke out.
“Then suddenly there’s these loud booms, crashing sounds, plates, silverware, everything flying all over the place,” he said on “State of the Union.” “And people started yelling, get down, get down! Somebody kind of grabbed me and pushed me from behind. I landed on Kerry and a couple other people.”
Hailey Fuchs and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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