The lawyer for White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting suspect Cole Allen gave an absurd reason why the CalTech grad should be allowed to walk free pending trial, claiming he was “not a danger to anybody” — despite charges that he attempted to assassinate President Trump.
Defense attorneys claimed that Allen, 31, was not prepared to carry out a mass shooting in the room where Trump, first lady Melania, and most of the top members of the administration were in attendance, because he had a pump-action shotgun, his team wrote in papers Wednesday.
“Mr. Allen has no criminal history — not even prior arrests, which alone would rebut the presumption of detention,” they wrote in an 11-page filing.
“The government’s rhetoric about a ‘mass shooting’ is also unsupported by its own proffered facts. Mr. Allen was not alleged to be holding an automatic or even semi-automatic weapon that are the hallmarks of the modern-day mass shooting,” they added.
Allen was carrying a fully loaded 12-gauge Mossberg Maverick shotgun with an extended magazine tube when he tried to barge through a Secret Service checkpoint at the dinner, feds say.
Prosecutors also released a selfie he took showing him heavily armed — including with a .38 Super-caliber semi-automatic handgun and multiple knives.
Shotguns have been used in multiple mass shootings, including at Columbine, in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, and the 2018 Santa Fe, Texas, high school shooting.
However, during a brief hearing Thursday, defense attorney Tezira Abe reversed course, saying, “At this time, we are conceding detention.”
Abe said the defense might still raise the issue of bail at a later date.
She also asked Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya to have Allen removed from the “safe cell” where he’s been held since the shooting, where he’s been on “24-hour lockdown.”
Abe insisted again that Allen — who allegedly blew past Secret Service agents while armed to the teeth — was not “of danger to anybody.”
Allen walked into the courtroom in DC federal court wearing an orange jumpsuit and orange canvas shoes with his hands behind his back.
He only spoke to softly say “Good morning” to the judge.
Prosecutor Charles Jones pressed the judge to let him make arguments for why Allen should remain locked up until trial.
But an irritated Upadhyaya said it was inefficient to hear the government’s case for Allen to be jailed now when the defense wasn’t fighting it, since they might have to make the same arguments again down the line if Allen’s team seeks bail.
“I’m denying the government’s request,” she said. “It’s truly unprecedented.”
In Wednesday’s papers, Allen’s team argued that he previously had been a respected member of his community.
“He is a devout Christian who has spent countless hours with church groups for as long as family and friends can remember. He is a loved and respected teacher and colleague who has always demonstrated kindness, empathy, and compassion, and never violence,” wrote the federal public defenders.
They also disputed federal prosecutors’ claims that the WHCD shooting was intended to target the president, based on a manifesto the accused shooter sent out. In the note, first reported by The Post, Allen said he wanted to kill any member of the Trump administration he could — except FBI Director Kash Patel.
“The government’s evidence of the charged offense — the attempted assassination of the president — is thus built entirely upon speculation, even under the most generous reading of its theory,” they concluded.
“While the government may be able to say that the letter expresses an intent to target administration officials, it falls well short of narrowing those officials to President Trump.”
Prosecutors have argued for his detention before heading to trial on charges of attempting to assassinate Trump, traveling across state lines with a firearm to commit a felony, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
Photos released in court papers on Thursday by the prosecution showed Allen taking a chilling selfie in the mirror of his room at the Washington Hilton — before heading down and attempting to breach a security checkpoint.
Allen has not yet entered a plea in the case.
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