Would-be Trump assassin Cole Allen’s claim that there was extremely lax security at the event he targeted was seemingly substantiated by multiple attendees’ posts to social media.
The security presence at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner which featured President Trump showed an “insane” level of “incompetence,” Allen wrote in a manifesto he sent to family members shortly before he opened fire, The New York Post first reported. Firsthand accounts of media figures and others who attended the annual glitzy event at the Washington Hilton hotel also pointed to seemingly lenient security measures and minimal vetting of guests.
“Security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before,” Allen, a 31-year-old teacher from California who faces two preliminary federal charges, wrote in his manifesto, according to an excerpt posted by Reuters’s chief national security reporter Phil Stewart.
“Like, 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 shit,” continued the alleged shooter’s screed, in which he had dubbed himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
A string of the dinner’s guests appeared to corroborate the image of the security infrastructure.
“There was no security screening prior to entering the lobby,” attendee Misha Komadovsky, the U.S. correspondent for German outlet Deutsche Welle News wrote Saturday night on X, shortly after the shooting. He posted a picture of his ticket to the event, which included his table number but did not appear to have his name on it, writing, “This was the only thing required for entry into the Washington Hilton ballroom.”
Text at the bottom of the ticket indicates, “Please present this ticket to enter the reception and ballroom.”
Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin, who also attended the dinner, remarked on X that “Hypothetically, If I had hidden an explosive in my shoe or my jacket, I would have had no problem getting into” multiple of the Hilton’s ballrooms.
“The first exterior security for me was on the street outside of the hotel. I flashed my ticket and was waved through in one second. My name was not checked against any list, I showed no ID, I was not patted down and did not go through a metal detector. I probably could have shown a ticket from a prior year or a fake one as they barely looked at it,” he continued.
“From that point, I walked into the hotel with no further security check, and I walked down to the Fox pre-party where there were multiple ballrooms that were absolutely PACKED with attendees. Still did not go through any security at that point,” Melugin added.
Melugin clarified, however, that entering the main ballroom where the dinner itself took place did require him to “pass through magnetometers, empty our pockets, and get a pat down.”
“And even that checkpoint was just outside of the dinner room,” Melugin noted.
“Secret Service reacted quickly to an active armed threat and prevented that threat from getting into the ballroom. But the security leading up to that point, in my opinion, appeared to be lacking severely,” he concluded.
Newsmax anchor Greta Van Susteren wrote on X the dinner’s “[s]ecurity seemed lax and I mentioned this to my guest as we walked in(but this is a public hotel). [sic]” She added in her post that “law enforcement did a supreme job of stopping” the shooter, echoing Melugin.
Allen wrote that one thing he had “immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance,” according to an excerpt of his manifesto shared on X by New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz.
I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.” He noted in the manifesto that he had instead “expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo.”
Kari Lake, the Senior Advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media and former GOP candidate for Senate and Arizona governor, similarly wrote on X that she could not “believe how lax the security was” at the event.
“Upon entering nobody asked to visibly INSPECT my ticket nor asked for my photo identification. All one had to do was flash what appeared to be a ticket and they were fine with that,” she wrote in her post, attaching pictures and video footage of the dinner.
Fox News Radio podcast host Kennedy wrote on X she had changed hotels at the last minute Saturday and booked a room at the Washington Hilton just hours before the dinner and the shooting.
“I was never asked for a key, but could’ve produced one from a different city. Also never asked for ID, and waltzed through the lobby and lower ballroom areas like I owned the place,” she added. “Only saw one LE [law enforcement] dog by the red carpet, which also had surprisingly lax security.”
“Having been to this event several times as early as 1995, this was probably the least security I’ve encountered,” Kennedy, a former MTV personality in the 1990s, noted.
News Of The United States politics reporter Reese Gorman indicated on X he had spoken with a Republican lawmaker who attended the event. The lawmaker, who he did not name in his post, was “appalled at the lack of security entering the Washington Hilton.”
“There were 0 magnetometer or security checkpoints prior to entering the Washington Hilton. All you needed to do to get in was flash a ticket or a screenshot of an email, there was no actual inspection of what you showed anyone,” Gorman added. “In my case they didn’t even check my phone or ticket they let me through because I was with someone who had already flashed their ticket.”
“You didn’t reach your first and only security checkpoint until you went down the escalator and were right outside the ballroom. No ID’s were checked,” he emphasized.
“Top figures in the presidential line of succession were all gathered in the same room last night with this sort of lax security,” independent journalist Yashar Ali wrote on X in response to Gorman’s post.
In addition to Trump, Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson — the next two individuals in the presidential line of succession — were at the event. The highest-ranking member of the line of succession who was not at the event was Senate president pro tempore Chuck Grassley, 92.
“God forbid this had been a highly organized attack by a group of people, we could have Chuck Grassley as President of the United States right now,” Ali pointed out.
CNN host Dana Bash asked Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday morning if the event had been a “massive security failure.”
Blanche replied by arguing the contrary, dubbing the Secret Service’s response a “massive security success story.”
“This man, from what we know from video surveillance and from witnesses who were there, barely got past the perimeter,” he said, referring to Allen. “He was immediately subdued.”
In his statement following the shooting, United States Secret Service director Sean Curran said in a statement that the fact that the alleged shooter was apprehended “shows that our multi-layered protection works.”
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