31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen sent his family a roughly 1,052-word document that investigators and multiple outlets have described as a manifesto. Far from ambiguous, the writings reveal a clear political motive rooted in deep-seated rage against President Donald Trump and his administration.
Allen, a California tutor and mechanical engineering graduate from Torrance, signed the document as “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen.” He openly declared his intent to target Trump administration officials.
Key excerpt: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” This inflammatory language, which Norah O’Donnell read aloud on 60 Minutes, directly echoed long-debunked smears pushed by Trump’s most unhinged critics for years.
Allen further specified his targets: “Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.” He explicitly spared FBI Director Kash Patel in the document while making clear that others in the administration were fair game.
The shooter justified potential collateral damage with twisted logic: “I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people chose to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit), but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”
He mocked security at the Washington Hilton, calling it “insane” in its laxness, and outlined what amounted to “rules of engagement” for the attack he was about to launch.
Allen expressed personal discomfort with his planned actions, writing that “doing something like this” made him “want to throw up” and that he felt “rage thinking about everything this administration has done.” Yet he proceeded anyway, framing his violence as a moral imperative.
In a passage invoking Christian rhetoric while twisting it, Allen wrote: “Turning the other cheek when someone else is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.” He listed alleged victims of administration policies, including references to detention camps, executions, and abuse — standard hyperbolic left-wing talking points amplified since Trump’s return to office.
The manifesto opened with apologies to family, colleagues, and students for deceiving them about his true plans. He admitted abusing their trust while claiming he saw no other path forward.
Allen sent the document to family members roughly ten minutes before charging a Secret Service checkpoint outside the ballroom where President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other senior officials were present.
He carried multiple weapons, including a shotgun, handgun, and knives. One Secret Service agent was shot but saved by a bulletproof vest. Allen was subdued without reaching the main event.
Despite the document’s explicit targeting of the Trump administration and repetition of “pedophile, rapist, and traitor,” former President Barack Obama claimed shortly afterward that the motive was still unclear. Obama’s statement focused on generic rejection of violence and praise for the Secret Service while sidestepping the shooter’s own words.
This willful blindness drew swift conservative condemnation as yet another example of the political left refusing to confront the consequences of years of inflammatory anti-Trump rhetoric.
President Trump, during his tense 60 Minutes interview, forcefully rejected the smears after O’Donnell recited them: “I’m not a pedophile. Excuse me. Excuse me. I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person?” He called the host a “disgrace” for amplifying the manifesto on national television.
Trump added: “You’re horrible people… You should be ashamed of yourself for reading that, because I’m not any of those things.”
The manifesto’s release has intensified debate over media responsibility. Critics argue that legacy outlets like CBS have spent years mainstreaming the exact language Allen parroted, creating a toxic environment where unstable individuals feel justified in violence.
Allen reportedly made small political donations to Democrats in the past and expressed radical views in conversations with family, according to interviews conducted by investigators.
His writings also included anti-Christian undertones, with Trump later describing the document as containing “a lot of hatred in his heart” and elements hostile to Christian values.
