Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that he believes the suspected gunman at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was targeting administration officials, noting “we’re still looking into” whether President Donald Trump was specifically targeted.
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Blanche stressed that the investigation was “quite preliminary” and said that law enforcement was looking into further information about the suspect including “some writings” and speaking with people who knew him. The suspect is not cooperating with investigators, he added.
“I kept it a little general because we do believe it was administration officials,” Blanche told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker. “Obviously, President Trump is a member of the administration, the head of it, but, but as far as exacting threats that may have been communicated beforehand, we’re still actively investigating that evidence.”
Blanche declined to detail the writings, noting that the investigation was only about 12 hours old.
The suspect, identified by a federal official familiar with the case as Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, purchased his guns legally, according to a senior law enforcement official and law enforcement documents reviewed by NBC News. Law enforcement said late Saturday night that the suspect was armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives.
Trump said during a Saturday night press conference at the White House that he “fought like hell to stay” at the dinner after the incident, adding that the dinner would be rescheduled.
“We’re not going to let anybody take over our society,” he said on Saturday. “We’re not going to cancel things out, because we can’t do that.”
The acting attorney general said that law enforcement believe that the suspect traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago and finally to Washington, D.C., where he checked into the hotel where the event took place “in the last day or two.” Blanche also said that law enforcement believes the suspect bought the two firearms he had at the hotel “within the past couple of years.”
The correspondents’ dinner is usually attended by the president and top administration officials, though Saturday’s program was the first time Trump attended while in office.
Asked whether it was safe for Trump, Vice President JD Vance and administration officials to be in the same room at the same time, Blanche said “of course,” adding, “We’re not going to stop living.”
“The system worked,” he said, noting that the suspect only breached the perimeter by a few feet. “We were safe. President Trump was safe. His secret service agents kept him safe. All of us were safe.”
Blanche said that law enforcement did not currently believe that other people were involved beyond the detained suspect. Asked whether the suspect was cooperating with investigators, Blanche said he did not think so.
“At this point, we do not have somebody who is cooperating,” Blanche said. “I expect he will be charged formally tomorrow morning in federal court in Washington, DC, and I expect that we’ll go forward from there.”
Blanche said he anticipated two charges to be filed against the suspect.
“Not atypically, in a case like this, there will be an assault of a federal officer charge,” Blanche said. “There will be a charge about him discharging a firearm and attempting to kill a federal officer, and then there are potentially charges beyond that that come from reviewing of the evidence and if we understand his motivations and as we continue to gather.”
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