The Trump administration only provided a relatively low level of security at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where a gunman allegedly tried to kill President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet, according to a report.
The suspected gunman, identified as 31-year-old Cole Allen, stormed through a checkpoint before being taken down by armed agents outside the ballroom where Trump and other top federal officials were attending the black-tie event.
Sources told The Washington Post that, under normal circumstances, when the president and several top Cabinet officials are gathered in one place, plans would be in place for the Secret Service to coordinate all security through a formal designation known as a “National Special Security Event.”
However, no such designation was in place for Saturday’s WHCA dinner. Instead, law enforcement officials told the Post that the Secret Service considered only the ballroom and the immediate perimeter around it to be the areas it would protect on Saturday, not the entire hotel.
The incident—in which a suspect staying at the hotel, reportedly armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives, could have stormed into a room where Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other top officials were seated—has sparked serious concerns about the lax security at the event.
A manifesto the gunman allegedly sent to his family just before he tried to carry out the attack ridiculed the “insane” lack of security at the hotel where he checked in the day before the WHCA dinner, which the president was attending.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
Hugh Dougherty, executive editor of the Daily Beast, blasted the lack of security at the hotel after discovering he was staying in the room next to the alleged gunman.
“How on earth could someone with a disassembled long gun check into a room at a hotel where the president was going to speak? I can answer that: Nobody even looked at my luggage on Friday afternoon,” Dougherty wrote. “Worse, my colleague arrived on Saturday at 5 p.m. Nobody looked at his luggage either: No magnetometers, no hand checks, no I.D. checks. Nothing.”
Jason Pack, a former FBI official, also condemned how the suspect largely evaded security by simply checking into the hotel the day before the WHCA event.
“He didn’t beat the security plan the night of the dinner. He beat it the day he made the reservation,” Pack told the Wall Street Journal. “They built that perimeter to stop an army. Turns out all he needed was a room key.”
An unnamed D.C. government official told the Post that the annual WHCA dinner is not typically designated a National Special Security Event because the lineup varies from year to year. This year’s event was the first one that Trump attended as president.
Another D.C. government official briefed on preparations for the event added that National Special Security Events tend to be for multiday events with regular attendance by the president and top Cabinet officials.
“This is a dinner that he might not go to at the last minute and is not annually attended by him,” the official told the Post. “The State of the Union can only occur with the president; the WHCD has occurred many times without POTUS.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche praised the security on Saturday as a “massive” success, as the suspect was apprehended before he entered the ballroom.
“I mean, if you think about what happened as far as what we know right now, this suspect barely breached the perimeter,” Blanche told CNN on Sunday.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Secret Service for comment.
