Reuters : U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the suspect accused of trying to attack administration officials at a black-tie gala on Saturday night was a “pretty sick guy” who had been flagged to law enforcement by family members.
Trump said in TV interviews that the suspect, whom an official identified as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, of Torrance, California, had posted what Trump described as an “anti-Christian” manifesto.”He was a Christian, believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of change,” Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” program. “He was probably a pretty sick guy.”
In the manifesto, Allen calls himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and said he planned to attack Trump administration officials, prioritizing them from highest-ranking to lowest but excluding FBI Director Kash Patel, a law enforcement official told Reuters. Allen cited Christian theology as he said he was trying to protect those harmed by the administration’s policies.
“Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes,” the manifesto read, according to the official.
The manifesto, which was sent to members of Allen’s family shortly before the attack, mocked the “insane” lack of security at the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was held, the official added. Allen was arrested at the scene.
“Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance,” the manifesto’s author reportedly wrote. “I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat.”
The chaotic events raised fresh questions about the security of top U.S. officials, many of whom were gathered in the hotel’s expansive ballroom. Trump seized on the attention brought by the incident to promote his planned White House ballroom as a safer venue for such events.
