The suspect in the April 25 attack on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner has been formally indicted with four felony charges.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, has been charged by a federal grand jury in a three-page indictment with attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump, assaulting a federal agent with a deadly weapon, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a felony and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
He was previously charged by criminal complaint with three of the charges. The assault charge is new, but Judge Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, stated immediately after the attack that the charge was imminent.
Allen has been in federal custody since he was arrested after the attack. He will appear before Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, for an arraignment Monday morning.
Federal investigators had been investigating the ballistics of the shooting for the last week. Allen was found with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38 caliber semi-automatic pistol, three knives and “other dangerous paraphernalia,” according to federal prosecutors.
According to the criminal complaint, Allen traveled to Washington, D.C., by train, arriving on April 24 — one day before the correspondents’ dinner. On the night of the dinner, according to court documents and surveillance video released last week by the Justice Department, Allen approached a security checkpoint inside the Washington Hilton near the ballroom and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun, pointing it toward Secret Service officers standing nearby. One officer was seen firing in Allen’s direction.
Initially, the DOJ said in Allen’s charging affidavit that the Secret Service agent was “shot once in the chest” while wearing a ballistic vest. It then said the officer “drew his service weapon and fired multiple times” at Allen. On Wednesday, following the shooting, the government filed a motion removing the reference to the agent being shot. On Thursday, Secret Service Director Sean Curran told Fox News that the agent was shot in the chest by Allen but then immediately returned fire with five shots. And on Sunday, Pirro told CNN that fragments of a bullet from Allen’s gun were found in the officer’s bulletproof vest.
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“It’s definitely his bullet,” she said.
Shortly before the incident, Allen allegedly sent an email to members of his family explaining the actions he intended to take. He signed the email, “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
Allen’s attorneys told The Washington Post that prosecutors had not shared evidence with them showing Allen actually fired his weapon, and they said a muzzle flash from his gun does not appear visible on video footage. Prosecutors told the Post they had located what appeared to be buckshot from a gun they said was fired in the direction of the injured Secret Service officer.
The new assault charge does not require prosecutors to prove Allen’s bullet hit the Secret Service officer, though. Standard jury instructions published by federal appellate courts indicate the assault charge is satisfied when “one person intentionally strikes another, or willfully attempts, to inflict injury on another, or intentionally threatens another coupled with an apparent ability to inflict injury on another which causes a responsible apprehension of immediate bodily harm.”
Lisa Rubin contributed to this reporting
Fallon Gallagher is a legal affairs reporter for MS NOW.