Image Credit: Al Drago / Contributor / Getty Images 
Would-be assassin Cole Thomas Allen mocked security at the hotel where Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held, in a manifesto he distributed minutes before he tried to kill President Trump and members of his cabinet.
“Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo,” he wrote.
“What I got (who knows, maybe they’re pranking me!) is nothing.
“No damn security.
“Not in transport.
“Not in the hotel.
“Not in the event.”
He said he got an overwhelming sense of “arrogance” from the security arrangements—or lack thereof.
“I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.
“The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.
“Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again.”
He continued by speculating on the damage an Iranian agent could do at such an event.
“Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit.
“Actually insane.”
“Ma Deuce” is the nickname for a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun.
Investigators believe Allen traveled from Los Angeles to Washington DC by train, stopping in his native Chicago.
He may have traveled by train rather than air because security would have been less stringent.
Allen was able to enter the Washington Hilton hotel with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives. He rushed a security checkpoint and then opened fire, injuring a Secret Service agent before being tackled and apprehended.
He is currently facing two charges; although he is likely to face “many more.”
“The defendant will be arraigned on Monday in federal district court, but make no mistake, there will be many more charges based upon the information that we are learning in this very fluid situation,” US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said during a press conference.
Pirro said the suspect will face a count of using a firearm during a crime of violence, and a count relating to assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon.
