The armed man who breached security at a press dinner attended by President Trump detailed his motives in a manifesto, naming US officials as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”
The attacker, identified as 31-year-old California teacher Cole Allen, sent a note to relatives roughly ten minutes before Saturday’s attack at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, according to the New York Post, which first published the text.
In the 1,052-word manifesto, signed Cole “coldForce” “Friendly Federal Assassin” Allen, the suspect described himself as a “half-black, half-white” American citizen and framed his actions as a matter of personal responsibility to hold the government accountable.
“And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he wrote, identifying Trump administration officials – explicitly excluding FBI Director Kash Patel – as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”
Referring repeatedly to his alleged Christian faith, the gunman went on to address anticipated criticism of his actions with a list of “rebuttals.”
“Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration,” Allen wrote, in apparent reference to grievances including strikes on Venezuela-linked boats, the US attack on an Iranian girls’ school, immigration enforcement, and the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Although Allen said he aimed to minimize casualties among security personnel, hotel staff, and guests by “using buckshot,” he admitted that he “would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary,” arguing that those attending the event were “complicit” by choice.
US President Donald Trump described the suspect as a “sick man” who “hated Christians,” and dismissed accusations made in the manifesto during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.
Allen, a Torrance-based tutor and mechanical engineering graduate who also worked as a game developer, had no prior criminal record and is believed to have acted alone, according to investigators. Officials said he had legally purchased firearms, trained regularly at a shooting range, and traveled from Los Angeles to Washington by train before checking into the Hilton. His sister reportedly told investigators that he had spoken of doing “something” to fix the world.
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