The man accused of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges, including a news indictment, involving a security guard at the event.
According to NBC News, during the defendant’s arraignment in federal court on Monday, federal public defender Tezira Abe, who represents 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, told the Washington, D.C., court her client “pleads not guilty to all four counts as charged,” which include attempting to assassinate the president, transportation of a firearm and ammunition through interstate commerce with intent to commit a felony, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, and a new charge related to the shooting of a Secret Service agent, which a federal grand jury indicted Allen on last Tuesday.
During Monday’s arraignment, the prosecution laid out its intentions regarding the case, as well.
From NBC:
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones advised the court that they plan to start producing their first tranche of discovery to the defense by the end of the week.
Officials said Allen, a California teacher and engineer, was armed with multiple guns, as well as knives, when he sprinted through a security checkpoint near the event where Trump and other White House officials had gathered with journalists.
He was arrested after an exchange of gunfire with a U.S. Secret Service officer who fired at him multiple times, a criminal complaint said. Allen was not shot during the exchange. The officer, who was wearing a ballistic vest, was shot once in the chest, treated at a hospital and released.
Predictably, news of the attack had barely begun making headlines before Trump, his administration and his supporters seized on it to further their narrative that extreme political rhetoric spread by “the left” is causing political violence against conservatives and Republican officials, which, of course, ignores the statistical reality that it is the opposite that is true. At any rate, whatever political momentum Trump might have gained by the event, he immediately flushed down the MAGA toilet during his interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, when he freaked out over host Norah O’Donnell reading an excerpt from a manifesto attributed to Allen, which referred to “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor” without mentioning Trump by name, which is why the president’s response made him look like a hit dog hollering.
Now that Allen has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, it will be interesting to see how his case plays out and what his defense will be. Perhaps the administration finds itself on trial as well, as Allen’s alleged attack failed to do the job of bettering Trump’s favorability in the court of public opinion.
We shall see.
SEE ALSO:
What We Know About The Alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooter
