The California man who was arrested at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was part of a movement called the ‘Wide Awakes,’ officials say.
Cole Allen, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump on April 25, allegedly participated in an activist movement called the “Wide Awakes,” authorities said.
Federal officials accuse Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, of exchanging gunfire with officers in the Washington Hilton Hotel, injuring one, near a ballroom where Trump was attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Agents caught the suspect as he dashed toward the ballroom.
Allen allegedly wrote a manifesto saying he was targeting Trump administration members at the event, a White House official told The Epoch Times.
The suspect had also attended at least one anti-Trump “No Kings” protest in California—and was part of the Wide Awakes, the official said.
That alleged connection is now part of the Justice Department’s investigation into Allen, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at an April 27 news conference.
Here is what to know about the Wide Awakes.
Who Are the Wide Awakes?
A group called the Wide Awakes formed in Hartford, Connecticut, as a Republican political club in 1860, according to the National Park Service. The group, which favored abolishing slavery, helped Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln win the presidency.
Afterward, the Civil War overshadowed the group; the Wide Awakes faded into “a curious footnote in history,” the Park Service said.
Still, the group showed youthful voters that “politics could be exciting and fun,” and demonstrated to older Americans that “young people have a place in politics, where they can decide elections and the destiny of the country.”
Inspired by that legacy, another group using that name formed in 2020. But it differs from the original 1860 movement in significant ways.
While the original Wide Awakes group was specifically tied to the Republican Party and was tightly organized, the modern one by the same name appears to be decentralized; it also seems to have no directly stated allegiance to a specific political party.
The Epoch Times was unable to identify a central spokesperson for the Wide Awakes group, and found that a number of people and groups have adopted that term over the years.
However, WideAwakes.com—which promoted the network’s 2020 launch—has used its linked Instagram account, @wideawakes, as recently as March 19.
