Efforts to uncover answers about Saturday’s assassination attempt found MS NOW reporting on the “mystery” of who was actually shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
As with the tragedy at the July 13, 2024, Butler, Pennsylvania, rally and the subsequent attempt on President Donald Trump’s life weeks later at his West Palm Beach golf club, the most pressing question beyond who radicalized the alleged would-be assassin has been about potential security failures.
While the president himself has continued to offer nothing but praise for those who’ve protected him, sources that spoke with MS NOW suggested that the U.S. Secret Service agent struck during the apprehension of the suspect may have been a victim of friendly fire and that investigators remain “unable to say for certain” what happened.
Under the headline, “3 days after correspondents’ dinner, FBI still unsure who shot officer outside ballroom,” MS NOW reported, “The FBI has not found the fragment that pierced a Secret Service officer’s bullet-proof vest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, leaving it unable to say for certain that the armed attacker shot the officer or how he was injured, according to two people briefed on the probe.”
“Law enforcement agents on the scene Saturday believe Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect who breached the dinner’s final checkpoint, fired his shotgun and struck the officer with buckshot from his weapon, according to one of the people, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the ongoing probe,” the report continued. “A check of Allen’s shotgun showed that he discharged a shell but did not reload, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Monday.”
Despite the suggestion that the suspect was responsible for shooting the Secret Service agent, details raised doubts as MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig, Mychael Schnell, and Ken Dilanian stated, “But a mystery surrounds Allen’s use of his weapon — and the scuffle and shooting just above the Washington Hilton ballroom where President Donald Trump and many of his senior administration officials were joined for the dinner.”
In addition to noting that the shell of the suspect’s shotgun had not been ejected and the agent who fired five rounds — reportedly the only agent to return fire — hadn’t struck the suspect, the detail that the suspect was running toward the checkpoint before falling raised questions about how the alleged would-be assassin fired on someone behind him.
Along with questions about the findings of the investigation thus far, former Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino joined the chorus of concern about the security at the hotel hosting Saturday’s dinner.
“I think in the autopsy of this afterwards … In an event like this with an open hotel doing business, where it’s resource-constrained, and it’s very difficult to shut down the whole hotel, was the security perimeter compressed too far inside?” asked Bongino on “Fox & Friends Weekend” Sunday morning. “They’re going to have to go over that and see in the future how much farther they want to push [the perimeter] out.”
Bongino questions security perimeter at White House Correspondents’ Dinner https://t.co/p3zbnkv3as
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) April 27, 2026
According to MS NOW’s report, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was already actively shoring up the president’s security. It was said that she requested a meeting with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service Director Sean Curran regarding security for upcoming events.
