Americans have a hunger to know and understand what happened during the White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) assassination attempt. We have spent hours going through multiple sources and we think we have a better picture of what transpired Saturday night at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
What we have been able to deduce is would-be assassin Cole Allen was, as President Donald Trump summed him up, a whacko, the assassination attempt was not fake, and contrary to President Trump, security was lacking at this WHCD again just like Butler, Pennsylvania.
Cole Allen was believed to be a teacher or substitute teacher, but yet he held two college degrees, one of which was in mechanical engineering from California Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree (just last year) from California State University. He once was part of an internship program with NASA.
Unhinged liberals are saying this assassination was staged or a false flag event. that not only insults President Trump, but also the Secret Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation whose agents risk their lives every shift. The odds of all of them going along with such a hoax could never happen. Even if you take the Kennedy assassination in 1963, only now is it coming out the intelligence community may have been involved, which means most law enforcement with boots on the ground had no idea what was actually happening.
The reason why security was lacking at this Washington Hilton WHCD is two-fold. First, the Secret Service should have swept the entire building, all 1,107 guest rooms, and secured it thereafter. Allen Cole smuggled weapons into his room on the 10th floor and was never disturbed from the time he checked in. Second, he came down the stairwell from his room bypassing much of the Secret Service security detail so he had better access to the ballroom. His plan was to shoot his way into the room where President Trump was in attendance.
“Timeline REVEALS Cole Allen’s movements ahead of White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting” – The National Desk
Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche chronicled the suspect’s actions leading up to the event like this.
On 21 April, he left his home in the Los Angeles area by train, travelling to Chicago.
On 24 April, on the eve of the dinner, he left Chicago and arrived in Washington DC. He checked into the Washington Hilton hotel and stayed overnight.
On 25 April, he approached a security checkpoint at the event, and “ran through while holding a long gun”.
Secret Service “heard a loud gunshot”, Blanche said, adding that one agent “was shot in the chest but wore a ballistic vest which worked”. The weapon the suspect allegedly discharged during the time of the shooting was a long gun, Blanche said.
Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for Washington, D.C., said the defendant had written in a manifesto he “would not hesitate to engage with anyone who gets between him and the president”.
AG Blanche summed up the actions of Cole Allen as follows, “Allen approached a security checkpoint on the terrace level of the hotel, which is again a floor above where the dinner was taking place. He ran through the magneton holding a long gun. As he did so, US Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot.
One Secret Service officer was shot in the chest, but was wearing a ballistic vest that worked. Some claims the heroic officer who was hit fired five times at Allen, who was not shot, but fell to the ground and was promptly arrested.”
Newsweek reporter Leonardo Feldman noticed something strange during the White House Correspondents Dinner as well. He said security was outside the ballroom, but not outside the building itself. However, the Secret Service is not always readily spotted in a crowd.
CONCLUSION:
There are some serious questions and discrepancies in what transpired at the Washington Hilton last Saturday night. People have a right to ask questions and Americans have a right to know. In the absence of facts, people start to make up stories… stories like it never happened.
I’ve told the story about how I got to hang out with some members of the White House Secret Service Advance Team in 1976 as they prepared for President Gerald Ford’s visit to the high school where I was teaching. They did what was termed a “clean sweep” of the building as they prepared for his arrival. That was never done at the Washington Hilton last weekend. Why?
By all accounts Allen was one very smart cookie, at least on paper. So why did he opt to carry some of the dumbest weapons of any assassin; a shotgun, semi-automatic pistol, and some knives? By what logic did he calculate the knives would come in handy?
In a video I heard 6 shots, but now experts are saying there were 8 and the Secret Service is taking credit for 5 of them. Knowing the training agents get, how in the hell could they miss any part of the body of Cole Allen with 5 shots?
There is a story going around that Cole Allen never took any shots at anybody and the Secret Service agent shot in the chest may have been hit by friendly fire. Was this a case of “suicide by cop” to make a political statement?
Cole Allen, once again, seemed to be another young man becoming increasingly unstable. A brother and sister expressed concerns to authorities about their brother prior to this incident. Why were their warnings never heeded?
I noticed that when Allen was sprinting past the Secret Service in the Hilton hallway, one of the Secret Service agents could have simply tackled him or stuck out his foot to trip him, but the agent seemed to retreated in shock. Only thereafter did he draw his sidearm. Why?
What happened to Allen’s clothing between the time he was seen running past security to when he was on the floor, wrapped up in tinfoil, and handcuffed at the time of his arrest?
There is a story that Cole Allen was tackled by Secret Service, but another story says he tripped and fell while running. Which was it? Did he take any shots at all during his sprint?
Cole Allen was one person who got way too close to accomplishing his mission. He had just one more staircase and a door to open to have a clear shot at President Trump. How was this allowed to happen?
What if this had been a practice run for a future assassination attempt? What would have happened if there were 6 of these guys?
© 2026 by Mark S. Schwendau
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Thinking Conservative.
