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The suspect who tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Dinner with a plan to assassinate President Donald Trump and a bunch of top administration officials was potentially motivated by anger about the war in Iran, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
A DHS intelligence report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday concluded that the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran “may have contributed” to Cole Allen’s “decision to conduct the attack.” Posts on a social media account linked to Allen raged against the U.S. government’s actions in Iran and recently called for Trump to be impeached over the president’s warning that “a whole civilization will die.”
A DHS spokesman told Reuters that the intelligence report was created to “notify our partners of the latest available information following significant incidents that have impacts to homeland security.”
Allen wrote out some of his motivations in a manifesto that he shared with family members minutes before he attempted to charge into the ballroom at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, according to federal prosecutors. In a 1,000-word document, the suspected would-be assassin referred to Trump as a “pedophile, rapist, and traitor” and wrote that his goal was to murder Trump administration officials at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, targeting them from “highest-ranking to lowest.”
While Allen did not mention any frustrations about the Iran war in his manifesto, in a criticism of the security at the Washington Hilton, the suspect wrote, “If I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed sh*t.” [A 'Ma Deuce' is a .50-caliber heavy machine gun used by many militaries. Doesn't Allen sound like totally cool and macho.]
In the manifesto, Allen condemned other U.S. military action, highlighting strikes on suspected drug runners in the Caribbean. Allen said the suspected drug runners were “fisherman executed without trial.”
In the manifesto, the suspect called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and invoked his Christian faith, arguing that “Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
Minutes after President Trump arrived at the Washington Hilton for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25, Allen ran through a security checkpoint and fired one shot from his Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun that struck a Secret Service agent, according to the Justice Department. A Secret Service agent returned fire, and Allen was detained shortly after he got past the security checkpoint when he fell to the ground. Allen was not hit by any of the agent’s shots, and the agent who was shot by Allen was protected by a bulletproof vest.Allen was also carrying a fully-loaded Rock Island Armory 1911 .38 caliber pistol and multiple knives when he attacked, the Justice Department said. Allen was initially charged with attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, transportation of a firearm and ammunition in interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors added an additional charge of assault on a federal officer. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Sunday that the Secret Service agent was “definitively” shot by Allen.
“He had every intention to kill him and anyone who got in his way on his way to killing the president of the United States,” Pirro said.
Earlier this week, the judge overseeing Allen’s case apologized to the suspect for the conditions he has faced in jail. Judge Zia Faruqui, who has a soft-on-crime record, grilled jail officials for placing Allen on a temporary suicide watch that required 24-hour isolation.
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