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The federal prosecutor leading the case against Cole Tomas Allen, the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, said Sunday that the government has overwhelming evidence of premeditated intent and can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro made the remarks on CNN’s “State of the Union,” pushing back against defense claims that the case is built on speculation and that the alleged manifesto never mentioned Trump by name.
“This was a premeditated violent act calculated to take down the president and anyone who was in the line of fire,” Pirro said.
Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, is accused of opening fire outside the Washington Hilton ballroom on April 25, where the dinner was being held. Pirro said digital evidence shows Allen tracked Trump’s movements throughout the evening — monitoring whether the president had entered the ballroom and when dinner would be served — establishing the commander in chief as the clear target.
Pirro also addressed the wounding of a Secret Service officer during the exchange of gunfire, saying investigators have forensically linked the pellet that struck the agent to Allen’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun. She said surveillance video captures Allen firing at the officer, and the officer himself will testify that he was shot at before returning fire.
“It is definitively his bullet,” Pirro said.
The video, previously released by Pirro, shows Allen entering a doorway where a police K-9 unit briefly interacted with him. Pirro said Allen used the room to remove a long coat concealing his shotgun before emerging to advance on his target. She said the dog appeared to be a bomb-detection animal but did not explain why the officer pulled it back.
Pirro forcefully disputed defense suggestions of mental illness or claims the attack was staged, describing Allen as a “brilliant” man with a master’s degree and a former employee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“He is far from insane,” she said, noting that Allen documented his cross-country journey from California through Chicago to Washington, D.C., with coherent observations about the landscape. “He is very, very lucid and clear.”
Allen’s defense lawyers have maintained the government’s case rests on speculation.
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