The upheaval of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by a would-be assassin has committed the Justice Department to two goals: Build a ballroom at the White House, and keep the suspect detained.
Cole Tomas Allen, the alleged gunman, already faces three criminal charges that include attempting to assassinate President Trump. Top officials have signaled that additional counts are imminent.
We were at Allen’s initial court appearance Monday, where we got a look at the government’s earliest findings.
Prosecutors said Allen checked into the hotel the day before the dinner, a yearly black-tie gathering of journalists and public officials. He was armed with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol, three knives and “other dangerous paraphernalia.”
Allen was allegedly targeting White House officials “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” according to writings an administration official confirmed were his. He refers to himself in the manifesto as a “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
Newly unsealed court documents revealed that Allen allegedly discharged a shotgun, though authorities have said it’s not clear whether it was the suspect’s bullet that hit a Secret Service officer in his ballistic vest.
The attempted attack rattled the dinner’s attendees, who dropped to the floor and dove under tables when gunshots rang out and top officials were rushed to secure locations. (Your authors, and their editor, were among the attendees.)
Allen is due back in court on Thursday for a detention hearing. Jocelyn Ballantine, who represents the DOJ and is a heavy-hitting prosecutor who has overseen major national security cases, including the sedition prosecution of the Proud Boys, said there is a presumption of detention.
At the hearing, public defender Tezira Abe pointed to Allen’s lack of a prior criminal record as reason he should be freed ahead of trial.
“He also is presumed innocent at this time,” she reminded the court.
As Allen’s prosecution progresses, the Trump administration has used the attack to go all in on a push to build a White House ballroom, though it’s important to note the dinner is not put on by the White House – it is put on by the White House Correspondents Association, who represents the journalists that cover the presidency and invite the president and his administration as a courtesy. The main point of the dinner is to hand out scholarships to student reporters and award Washington journalists for their coverage.
When it comes to a challenge to building the ballroom, the Justice Department started with a path of least resistance, but it didn’t work. They pleaded with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to simply drop their challenge, but the group turned it down.
“That lawsuit seeks to require the President to secure authorization from Congress — as mandated by the Constitution and federal law — before undertaking further construction on the proposed ballroom. The National Trust respectfully declines the invitation to dismiss,” Gregory Craig, the group’s lawyer, wrote back to DOJ in a letter.
Read the letter here, courtesy of our colleague Tara Suter.
Now, the administration has turned to lobbying the judge, lashing out at the Trust in the process.
“They are very bad for our Country,” the Justice Department said in a court filing. “They stop many projects that are worthy, and hurt many others. In this case, they are trying to stop one that is vital to our National Security.”
The red-hot motion, filed just before midnight at the start of Tuesday, sparked condemnation from the president’s critics, who say it used over-the-top language that isn’t appropriate for a government submission in court.
It began by saying the group’s name is “FAKE” because “it makes it sound like a Governmental Agency, which it is not.” And it called the group’s lawsuit “dangerous” that endangers Trump’s life.
“But this did not deter them because they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly referred to as TDS,” the filing read.
Notably, it was signed by Stanley Woodward, the No. 3 official at the Justice Department. Before joining the Trump administration, Woodward represented several Jan. 6 defendants, including Oath Keepers deputy Kelly Meggs, who was convicted of sedition but saw his sentence commuted by Trump to time served.
Woodward joined the DOJ team fighting the ballroom lawsuit just before it was filed.
The decision on what’s next will be up to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, the appointee of former President George W. Bush who oversees the case.
Prior to the shooting, an appeals court put Leon’s injunction on hold that blocked above-ground construction on the ballroom. The appeals court will hold oral arguments in June.
Dive deeper on the shooting...
Read a first-hand account of the shooting from our dinner tablemate, Judy Kurtz.
Read visual analysis of the shooter’s path from The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Read the account of WHCA President Weijia Jiang, who was on stage with Trump.
More on Allen’s first court appearance and the emerging picture of his motivations.
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