Defense attorneys for the man accused of trying to storm the White House correspondents’ dinner said video of the incident “seems to show no muzzle flash” from a shotgun, questioning prosecutors’ claim that the suspect opened fire while running toward a ballroom where President Donald Trump was seated.
Cole Tomas Allen, who has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president at the black-tie event Saturday night, said through his attorneys that the Justice Department has not disclosed evidence that he fired a weapon, as it alleged in court records.
Prosecutors in response disclosed new details about the investigation, including that authorities had recovered what appeared to be a buckshot pellet from the scene at the Washington Hilton. They said the buckshot showed signs of having been fired in the direction of a Secret Service officer whose bulletproof vest was struck during the incident, but the filing stopped short of asserting that Allen shot the officer.
Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, faces up to life in prison if convicted of the attempt on Trump’s life at the annual gala, which was cut short Saturday night after the president, the first lady and top Cabinet officials were taken away by their security details as the alleged gunman was apprehended outside the ballroom.
He was also charged with transporting firearms across state lines and discharging one of them during a violent crime. The last charge has raised questions about what the ballistics evidence in the case shows and who shot at the Secret Service officer.
Public defenders for Allen on Wednesday submitted a formal request for evidence including video, witness statements and ballistics information, saying those materials could clear Allen of the charge that he fired the shotgun. The defense attorneys also argued that acting attorney general Todd Blanche’s public statements describing ammunition found at the scene appeared to conflict with prosecutors’ theory of the case.
Prosecutors have alleged that Allen planned his attack for weeks leading up to the gala and was tracking Trump’s movements online the night of the event.
In court filings, the Justice Department said Allen had written messages to friends, family and a former employer showing his intent to target the president and top administration officials. U.S. officials said Allen was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a handgun, multiple knives and daggers, and “enough ammunition to take dozens of lives” when he charged a security checkpoint leading to the Hilton’s ballroom, sprinting through a magnetometer before he was subdued.
“As the defendant did so, he held a shotgun in both hands in a raised position parallel to the ground,” U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro’s office said in a court filing, requesting that Allen be held in jail pending trial.
“Had the defendant achieved his intended outcome, he would have brought about one of the darkest days in American history,” the prosecutors wrote.
Blanche said in the hours after the incident that Allen was believed on a preliminary basis to have shot the officer. That officer shot five times at Allen, who fell down but was not hit by the gunfire, according to court records.
Prosecutors said the officer, who is not identified by name in court documents, “observed the defendant fire the shotgun in the direction of the stairs leading down to the ballroom.” He and other Secret Service officers also heard the shotgun go off, the filing says.
An assistant U.S. attorney, Jocelyn Ballantine, said in a court filing responding to the defense team’s request for evidence that “the government’s investigation is ongoing and its analysis of the crime scene evidence and recovered ballistics evidence is not yet complete.” The evidence to date, she wrote, “establishes that your client fired his Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun at least one time.”
The shotgun had one spent cartridge in the chamber, and a preliminary review of ballistics indicated gunfire in the direction of a Secret Service officer who said he saw Allen fire the weapon, Ballantine wrote. When investigators searched the scene, “at least one fragment was recovered … that was physically consistent with a single buckshot pellet,” Ballantine wrote.
In a court filing, the Justice Department also disputed claims from the defense team that Blanche’s statements conflicted with prosecutors’ theory of the criminal case.
The filing quoted Blanche’s comments at a Justice Department news conference Monday, in which he cautioned several times that the investigation was not yet complete. Blanche then said: “We do believe as the complaint lays out that the suspect fired his shotgun. But as far as getting into exacting ballistics I’m not going to do that today because it’s still being looked at and finalized.”
Public defenders for Allen described him as a devout Christian who was “gainfully employed as a tutor in his home state of California.”
In court papers this week, the defense team initially requested his release from jail, but it dropped that request at the start of a court hearing Thursday. Tezira Abe, one of Allen’s attorneys, said he agreed to be held in custody pending trial.
That prevented a prosecutor, Charles R. Jones, from reading in open court what he described as supplemental factual details about the investigation. Jones pressed Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya to continue the detention hearing so he could read those details into the record. It was not clear what information was included in the statement.
The judge denied the request. “It’s truly unprecedented,” Upadhyaya said, underscoring that Allen had just accepted prosecutors’ request that he be jailed.
Surveillance footage reviewed by The Washington Post shows an officer drew his weapon within two seconds of the suspect’s arrival. The officer is seen firing four times at the suspect, and three of those shots appeared to be in the general direction of other security personnel as the suspect ran past them. The footage does not capture every gunshot that authorities say was fired. There is no indication in the footage reviewed by The Post that the suspect fired his weapon.
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