Questions Mount Over How Close Suspect Got To Trump

A would-be Trump assassin at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in a Washington, D.C., hotel forced the Trump team’s evacuation. Now, the big questions are coming fast: Did the crazed left-wing shooter get too close? Who’s to blame for all this?

This incident, the third one in three years, also shows that the incendiary Democrat rhetoric continues to incite leftist political violence against President Trump. And it amplifies the need for Trump’s high-security White House ballroom.

Like some of you, I was watching the beginning of the White House Correspondents’ dinner (WHCD) at the Washington Hilton hotel ballroom when chaos struck.

For few minutes it was hard to decipher what was happening, other than some type of threat had been identified, and Secret Service agents and Counter Assault Team (CAT) members swarmed the stage and hustled President Trump, First Lady Melania, VP JD Vance, and others, quickly off stage.

Almost as quickly, other Secret Service agents and protective agents for Cabinet members rushed forward, some sidearms in hand, climbing over and through tightly packed tables to reach and retrieve their protectees. All this while guests huddled beneath tables.

As a protective security professional who managed major security operations and led large protective details at prominent D.C. venues such as the Hilton, I have long complained about how densely packed that venue usually is, and how this would greatly impede an evacuation, or any active shooter response.

Most people familiar with the Washington Hilton understand that it is also a huge, sprawling venue, with 47 meeting rooms, more than 1,100 guest rooms, and over 118,000 square feet of event space — an interconnected layout with constant movement. Security is especially complex during high-profile events like the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

We quickly learned that Trump and top officials were rushed out to safety because shots were heard outside the ballroom after the gunman exchanged fire with Secret Service officers.

While I was pleased to see the professional performance of the agents and officers involved, I was also surprised that any type of threat could have gotten that close to the Hilton’s cavernous underground main ballroom, some refer to as the spaceship.

Despite the attendance by the president and senior leaders of his administration, and Congress this time, and unlike presidential inaugurations or State of the Union addresses, the WHCD is not typically designated as a National Special Security Event (NSSE), the nation’s highest security classification. This is because it rarely has so many senior government officials in attendance.

Maybe in this case it should have been.

Still, it is protected by one of the most extensive security operations outside of that formal NSSE classification.

At events of this scale, we generally try to have multi-layered security, including checkpoints with magnetometers (metal detectors) as far from the main venue as possible. Anyone within range of that ballroom should have already been cleared for weapons before they got that close.

So how did the armed shooter manage to get into the hotel and that close to the event?

Note that this hotel, or just outside it, was the site of the 1981 assassination attempt against President Reagan, where he was shot by mentally ill John Hinkley Jr., as Reagan was returning to his limousine parked on the street after a speaking engagement.

After that incident, the hotel built extensive security modifications specifically to accommodate the president during his occasional visits for events, including a secured garage designed to fit the presidential limousine with a dedicated elevator and staircase to carry POTUS to a secured suite reserved for the president and his entourage.

At this event, the hotel was closed to the public beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday in anticipation of the dinner which began at 8 p.m. Left-wing protesters gathered outside, mostly directing their rage at the media attending the event with Trump.

As AP reported, from 2 p.m. onward, access to the hotel was restricted to hotel guests, people with tickets to the dinner, an invitation to one of the receptions that are held at the hotel before or after the dinner, or credentials from the White House Correspondents’ Association.

The 2,300 guests at the event supposedly had to then pass through several additional checks to enter the room, including showing tickets to association volunteers and hotel staff as well as passing through the magnetometers manned by the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) near the ballroom.

Photo ID though was reportedly not required.

Still, the armed shooter got within reach of the closed ballroom. How?

Well, apparently, the suspect was staying in the hotel as a guest, having checked in on Friday. This gave him access. Hotel guests are always a weak point in any hotel event security plan. Any advertised event like this allows a potential terrorist or shooter to pre-stage at the site as a guest, as he did.

He appears to have taken back stairs down to the ballroom floor and brought his guns (a modified shotgun and revolver or pistol) and knives with him from his room, though some reports claim he pre-staged them in a small room or closet near the ballroom.

A volunteer at the dinner said the shooter appeared to assemble a “long” weapon in a loosely monitored area near a terrace-level entrance before moving toward the ballroom.

Speaking to the New York Post, witness Helen Mabus described the space as a “makeshift room” used for storing bar carts, adding there was “no security” present at the time.

“He was in that room…he grabbed it out of a bag or something,” she said. “It was long and didn’t look like a typical gun.”

However, it is likely that he simply assembled the weapons and got ready in that space.

And then there is the issue with the shooter being able to sprint full speed down the hall and blow past the now shut down metal detector check point before agents were able to respond and tackle him — but not before he fired a shot at a uniformed Secret Service officer, hitting him in his body armor — and agents returned fire.

The checkpoint magnetometers outside the ballroom were being dismantled because no one else would be allowed inside the ballroom once the event had begun. Still, barriers or other checkpoints should have been in place to prevent anyone from sprinting 20+ yards toward the ballroom along a broad corridor.

I’m sure these issues will be addressed in the future. But the Secret Service has been providing presidential security at the Hilton for decades and even uses the site for training agents and officers. So this scenario should have been wargamed beforehand.

President Trump stated moving forward, “we need levels of security that probably nobody has ever seen before.” He also reminded everyone that this demonstrates why we need his proposed highly secure White House ballroom and a permanent return to White House-based events. And I immediately thought the same thing.

On Sunday, he reminded us that his proposed ballroom was designed in conjunction with the military and Secret Service. It’s got every single bell and whistle you can possibly have for security and safety, he added. Previously, he has noted the ballroom’s drone-proof roofing, bullet and blast proof walls, and glass and bio-chemical threat countermeasures.

Democrat Sen. John Fetterman, who was attending the dinner, also called on Trump opponents to drop their Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) and back the construction of a White House ballroom.

“We were there front and center,” the Democrat said in a post on X.

“That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government,” Fetterman continued. “After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”

Fortunately, the layered security the Secret Service did have on site, worked. And even if the shooter had managed to breach the ballroom, he likely would have been killed or taken down well before he could have threatened the president or guests.

This is because, in addition to the agents just outside, inside the ballroom for the dinner itself there were further major security measures.

Secret Service maintained another perimeter around the president that included a buffer separating him and others seated at the head table from the rest of the attendees.

Armored plates were hidden under the table where Trump and dignitaries were seated, and the presidential podium, known as the Blue Goose, is also fully armored. As we saw, Secret Service agents were at their posts in front of the stage and in its wings, as were the heavily armed CAT agents, and armed security details for dozens of other high-profile administration and congressional attendees were also in the ballroom.

Most of these security detail members were along the rear wall where the entrances were located.

That’s a lot of good guys with guns, but they can also create confusion in a crisis if not properly identified and coordinated.

Meanwhile, the shooter, identified as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old left-wing, anti-Trump, computer programmer and teacher from California, who also donated to Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign via ActBlue, had shared writings that “clearly stated he wanted to target administration officials.”

Family members said the gunman had sent them an alleged manifesto that laid out his plans prior to the shooting. President Trump added that it also allegedly indicated that Allen harbored hatred toward Christians.

Does any of this sound familiar? Sadly, all of it has become far too common among leftist Democrats.

Bottom line: Security at the WHCD could have been better, but it still succeeded in quickly containing the threat outside the venue ballroom. And, in addition to giving Trump his damned secure ballroom for the safety and benefit of future presidents and state guests, Democrats must also reign in their toxic anti-Trump rhetoric.

How many more acts of leftist political violence do we need before they act?

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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