Administration

Blanche: Suspect in WHCA dinner shooting not ‘cooperating’

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by Max Rego - 04/26/26 11:01 AM ET

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by Max Rego - 04/26/26 11:01 AM ET

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the alleged gunman who exchanged fire with law enforcement at Saturday’s White House Correspondents Association dinner is not “cooperating” with investigators.

“We are not viewing him as cooperating necessarily right now, although we will see what happens going forward,” Blanche told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Multiple outlets identified the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Allen, from Torrance, California. The Hill has not independently verified the individual’s identity.

After the incident, President Trump shared a photo to his Truth Social platform of the suspect, surrounded by law enforcement, shirtless and laying on the ground with his arms behind his back.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro told reporters Saturday that the man will be arraigned in federal court on Monday on two charges — using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon.

Blanche also noted that whether the suspect will face more charges is “left to be seen, depending on what we learned from the evidence” investigators gather.

“The way that these charges work, a lot of the charges that he could be charged with depends on us understanding his motive, his premeditation [and] what he wanted to do,” the acting attorney general told Bash. “And that requires us to go through the evidence and develop a case, which the FBI is working on now.”

Blanche also said that the suspect could “absolutely” be charged with attempting to assassinate Trump, who was rushed out of the ballroom at the Washington Hilton by Secret Service agents shortly after shots were fired.

Interim Metropolitan Police Department Chief Jeffery Carroll told reporters Saturday that the gunman shot one Secret Service officer in the latter’s vest. The officer was transported to a local hospital and was in “good spirits,” Carroll noted.

The suspect was not struck by gunfire but was also transported to a local hospital to be evaluated, the interim chief added.

As for the probe into the shooting, Blanche said that investigators have already spoken to those who knew the alleged gunman and are going through evidence that they collected. The acting attorney general noted that the FBI, along with state and local law enforcement in Los Angeles and the nation’s capital, executed search warrants on electronic devices that they believe belong to the suspect.

“We’re still looking to try to understand a motive,” Blanche added. “From our preliminary investigation, it does appear the suspect was targeting members of the [Trump] administration. I don’t want to go beyond that because we don’t have specifics yet about particular members of the administration, except that we do understand that that was his goal and his target.”

Updated at 11:28 a.m. EDT

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