White House event shooter names all US officials, leaves Kash Patel off target list

In the manifesto, Cole Thomas Allen called himself the 'Friendly Federal Assassin' and said he intended to target Trump administration officials, ranking them from the highest level downwards.

In Short

• Family members alerted law enforcement before the suspect reached Washington
• Authorities said the manifesto ranked intended targets across the administration
• The document invoked Christian theology while justifying violence over policy harms

From the highest-ranking officials to the lowest in the US government, not even sparing Secret Service agents guarding President Donald Trump and his family, the suspect had almost everyone on his target list.

In a manifesto sent to his family just 10 minutes before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, he suggested that even hotel security staff could become targets “unless they shoot at me.”

Surprisingly, the only person he left out was FBI Director Kash Patel, though he gave no reason.

“Administration officials (not including Mr Patel) are targets, prioritised from highest-ranking to lowest,” he wrote, according to the New York Post.

The suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, said Secret Service agents would be targets “only if necessary.”

In the manifesto, Allen called himself the ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ and said he intended to target Trump administration officials, ranking them from the highest level downwards. An official told Reuters that Allen used Christian theology in the document and wrote that he was acting to protect people he believed had been harmed by the administration's policies.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the man accused of trying to attack administration officials was a ‘pretty sick guy’ who had been reported to law enforcement by members of his family.

In television interviews, Trump said the suspect, identified by an official as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, had written what he described as an “anti-Christian” manifesto. The incident at the Washington Hilton, where the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was being held, has raised fresh questions about security arrangements for senior US officials.

Speaking to CBS’s 60 Minutes, Trump said Allen “was a Christian, a believer, and then he became an anti-Christian, and he had a lot of change.” He added, “He was probably a pretty sick guy.”

According to an official, the manifesto stated: “Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behaviour; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”

The document was sent to members of Allen’s family shortly before the attempted attack and also mocked what it described as the “insane” lack of security at the Washington Hilton. Allen was arrested at the scene.

“I immediately noticed the sense of arrogance when I walked into the hotel. I walked in with multiple weapons, and not a single person considered that I could be a threat,” he wrote in the manifesto.

As attention turned to the security lapse, Trump used the incident to promote his planned White House ballroom as a safer venue for such events. In a post on Truth Social, he wrote: "This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!"

- Ends
Inputs from Reuters