Prosecutors seek detention of alleged White House dinner shooter

Federal prosecutors provided in a filing Wednesday the most detailed account to date of Cole Tomas Allen’s alleged weeks-long plan to kill Donald Trump, who had joined more than 2,500 members of the Washington press corps for their annual White House correspondents’ dinner.

The motion, aimed at keeping Allen detained and filed by the US attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, includes two selfies of the alleged shooter standing in front of a mirror in his hotel room in a black suit, a slight smirk crossing his face. He is kitted out with two firearms and multiple knives tucked into his belt. Prosecutors allege they are the same weapons that were confiscated from Allen after the attack.

Prosecutors have asked the court to detain Allen before his trial because they say evidence of his guilt is “overwhelming”. The filing states that he faces a possible sentence of life in prison, and a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. Allen has not yet entered a plea in the case.

Allen, a 31-year old tutor from Torrance, California, was first detained and arrested after allegedly charging through a US Secret Service security checkpoint outside the black tie dinner with a 12-gauge shotgun. Prosecutors allege Allen also intended to kill members of Trump’s cabinet.

A Secret Service agent stopped Allen at about 8.40 pm on Saturday night, the court records assert. One officer was shot during an exchange of fire, but was uninjured due to a bulletproof vest, according to Jeffery Carroll, a Washington police chief.

Surveillance footage reviewed by the Washington Post shows a Secret Service officer drawing his weapon within two seconds of Allen’s arrival at the checkpoint. The officer is then seen firing four times, including in the direction of other security personnel as Allen is rushing past. According to the Washington Post review, there is no indication in the footage that Allen ever fired his weapon, though Wednesday’s motion alleges a US Secret Service officer saw him discharge it.

A set of allegedly prescheduled emails sent minutes before the attack offer unusual insight into the motivations behind what is alleged to be Allen’s botched attempt on Trump’s life.

“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he is said to have written, before proceeding to outline a set of rules to follow during the attack.

The filing includes a description of a “postscript” letter apparently written from Allen’s hotel room in Washington. In it, the author describes the hotel’s weak security protocols, and a reflection that no one at the hotel seemed to consider him a threat.