(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In the wake of the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner attack, federal prosecutors said that the alleged attacker, Cole Allen, shot a Secret Service agent during his failed attempt to sprint through security on his way to President Donald Trump.
However, lawyers for Allen say there’s no solid evidence that their client shot the agent. Video evidence doesn’t show Allen firing his shotgun, and the forensic evidence is sketchy at best, they said in a Tuesday court filing.
According to Allen’s lawyers, the DOJ provided them with several initial forensic reports in July, including Ballistics and Toolmark Reports; Metallurgy Report; FTIR analysis; Trace Evidence Analysis of fragments and fibers; Lab Report analysis of Trace, hair and fibers; fingerprint reports; and DNA reports. The DOJ then provided the defense with more reports on Oct. 1.
The defense lawyers said they hired their own forensic science expert to review the reports, and that the evidence doesn’t support the DOJ’s opinion that Cole shot the Secret Service agent. Rather, the DOJ’s opinion is “based on controversial science drawn from conclusions from facts that do not appear to exist in this case,” they said.
The defense asked a judge to set a scheduling order, which would require the DOJ to notify them about the expert witnesses that it intends to use. The DOJ has yet to respond.
🚨In the wake of the White House Correspondents Dinner attack, there were reports that a Secret Service agent was hit by friendly fire. The DOJ says Cole Allen is the one who shot the agent, but Allen's lawyers are now casting doubt on the forensic evidence underpinning that… https://t.co/2lRtQSULjq pic.twitter.com/RDmOt5GiUV
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 22, 2026
The defense’s Tuesday filing may rekindle initial rumors that the Secret Service agent, who was wearing a bullet proof vest and survived, was hit by friendly fire. Investigative journalist Susan Crabtree raised such questions the day after the attack.
“Sources in the Secret Service community are raising friendly fire questions based on a joint analysis of the below video,” Crabtree said at the time, posting an AI-enhanced video of the gunman rushing past security.
In the video, a Secret Service officer can be seen in the lower lefthand corner with a handgun, apparently firing at the suspect. Across the hallway, another officer doubles over and falls down before crawling away.
The gunman wasn’t shot, Crabtree noted.
❓❓❓Was the Secret Service Uniformed Division officer shot last night in a case of friendly fire?
I just asked the @SecretService about the possibility that the UD officer was hit by another Secret Service officer or agent based on the analysis of the video below.
I'm told… https://t.co/oSjIIdWRvC
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) April 26, 2026
The DOJ initially responded to the friendly-fire rumors in early May. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said there was no evidence the agent was hit by friendly fire during the incident at a Washington hotel, but she went beyond that Sunday in saying a shot from one of Cole Tomas Allen’s weapons hit the officer’s bullet-resistant vest.
“We now can establish that a pellet that came from the buckshot from the defendant’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun was intertwined with the fiber of the vest of the Secret Service officer,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is definitively his bullet.”
Allen has been charged with attempted assassination of the president, as well as two additional firearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.
Allen, who was 31 at the time of the incident, is from Torrance, California. He worked as a part-time tutor for a test preparation company and is an amateur video game developer.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
