FBI Director Kash Patel was grilled on Fox News over whether authorities knew anything about the suspected shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones, who attended Saturday’s dinner, described it as a “security nightmare” in a post on X after the event. Patel, who remained in the hotel ballroom for approximately 90 minutes after President Donald Trump and his cabinet were hurried out by security, was pressed by Jones on Monday about whether the alleged gunman was “on the Feds’ radar.”
Questions About Prior Knowledge
The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, is due to be arraigned in federal court Monday. “Was he on the Feds’ radar before?” Jones asked Patel. “Did you see the posting he was making? That he was trying to come to the hotel? And it is true that there was an alert put out with a description of him, but he wasn’t detected in the hotel?”
Allen is accused of sending a manifesto filled with anti-Trump and anti-Christian sentiments to family members before the shooting, officials told CBS News. Patel responded, “Those are all things that the bureau and our investigation are looking at,” before pivoting to discuss the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s operations. He added that his team has collected “e-mails, social media postings, witness interviews, interviews with family and friends and neighbors” to present in court.
Follow-Up on Intelligence
Co-host Brian Kilmeade interjected, referring to Jones’s previous question: “So is any of that true, what he mentioned?” Jones followed up: “Because Kash, you are talking about the behavior analysis element of it, I’m not talking about that. I’m saying was there a profile put out? Was he known? Was there chatter about him before, not during the act, before it?”
Patel said those questions would be answered in the criminal complaint and explained he couldn’t “get ahead” of the Department of Justice.
Scrutiny Over Security Failures
Jones also criticized Patel over repeated assassination attempts on Trump, with Saturday’s incident being the third in less than two years. “The president of the United States is averaging an assassination attempt once a year... So who’s going to do the investigating of the procedures?” Jones asked. “Secret Service can’t investigate themselves because there are still people in leadership at the Secret Service that were responsible for Butler. How does that happen? It was a failure.”
Patel agreed that Butler was “a total failure” and expressed “full confidence” in Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose department oversees the Secret Service.
Suspect’s Background and Manifesto
Allen, 31, from Torrance, California, was identified as the suspected gunman. In his first interview since the shooting, Trump called Allen’s alleged manifesto “anti-Christian” when speaking to Fox News. Sections from the suspect’s writings were later published by the New York Post, detailing that Allen referred to himself as the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and “Cole coldForce.”
“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,” Allen allegedly wrote. “I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
The suspect allegedly said he was targeting a range of top officials in the Trump administration. Authorities were alerted to the manifesto by the suspect’s brother, who lives in New London, Connecticut, according to the Post.
