Washington, D.C. — A California man accused of attempting to kill President Donald Trump now faces the full weight of a federal video record that prosecutors say leaves nothing to interpretation.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro made the footage public Thursday evening, posting it to social media after it had already been handed over to U.S. District Court.
The nearly six-minute compilation draws from multiple synchronized, high-definition surveillance cameras inside the Washington Hilton — the same hotel where, on the night of April 25, 2026, Cole Tomas Allen allegedly charged an armed security checkpoint in an attempt to reach the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The footage begins not on the night of the attack, but the evening before it.
Hotel surveillance captured Allen leaving his 10th-floor room dressed in black and carrying a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives in a black bag. He used an interior stairwell to bypass heavily monitored areas of the hotel.
Camera 16, positioned in the hotel’s fitness area, picked him up on April 24 as he moved through the gym space — prosecutors argue this constitutes reconnaissance, a deliberate effort to learn the layout of a building he planned to attack the following night.
Court documents reveal Allen searched “white house correspondents dinner 2026” on his cellphone on April 6 — less than two hours before receiving a confirmation email for a two-night stay at the Washington Hilton from April 24 to 26.
Minutes before the attack, at approximately 8:27 p.m., Allen used his phone to watch live media coverage of President Trump and the First Lady arriving at the dinner, then searched “trump white house correspondents dinner” on a web search engine.
When April 25 arrived, Allen made one final preparation. About a half hour before the attack, he took a selfie inside his hotel room.
In the photo, he wore a black dress shirt, black slacks, a red necktie tucked into his pants, an ammunition bag, a shoulder holster, and a sheathed knife.
What followed is now captured frame-by-frame on federal video.
A Secret Service officer, shot point-blank in the chest with a shotgun, returned fire while falling — getting off five shots as he went down, according to Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
The video shows the officer drawing his handgun and firing multiple times at Allen as the 31-year-old sprinted toward and through the checkpoint with a long gun in hand.
The entire confrontation between Allen and law enforcement lasted seven seconds. The distance between the security checkpoint and the ballroom staircase measured approximately 40 feet.
The officer survived because of the vest he was wearing. Pirro addressed questions that had circulated online about whether the officer’s wound came from a fellow agent rather than from Allen himself.
“There is no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire,” Pirro wrote in her post. “The video also shows Allen casing the area in the Hilton Hotel the day before the attack. My office along with the [FBI] will continue this extensive investigation to bring Cole Allen to justice.”
Pirro stated separately on Fox News: “We know [Allen] fired off that 12-gauge shotgun one time.”
Allen had traveled to Washington by Amtrak train, taking the Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago before boarding a connecting route to the capital, arriving on the afternoon of April 24.
Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, faces three federal counts: attempted assassination of the President, transportation of a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Prosecutors say more charges are coming.
Investigators recovered a manifesto attributed to Allen that outlined plans to target Trump administration officials.
Authorities said the documents included references to the suspect describing himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin.”
President Trump described Allen as “a sick guy,” saying of the manifesto: “When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians. That’s one thing for sure.”
The Washington Hilton has now been the site of two apparent presidential assassination attempts — the first being the shooting of President Ronald Reagan outside the same hotel in 1981.
Pirro stated at a press conference: “Make no mistake, this was an attempted assassination of the President of the United States, with the defendant making clear what his intent was. That intent was to bring down as many of the high-ranking cabinet officials as he could. This is the kind of situation that we cannot tolerate.”
