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Trump says he “wasn’t making it that easy” for Secret Service during shooting
President Donald Trump said he may have slowed the response of the United States Secret Service when shots rang out at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night.
“And by that time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem … and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom, which you hear all the time,” the president added.
Trump said his actions may have caused agents to move more cautiously in the initial moments of the incident.
“I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly,” he said, adding that he told the agents, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see, wait a minute.”
The president said as agents began escorting him away from the table, they asked him to get down on the floor.
“So I went down, and the first lady went down also,” he told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell.
The full interview airs at 7 p.m. ET.
Secret Service opened fire on suspect but did not hit him, source says
A member of the uniformed division of the Secret Service fired on Cole Tomas Allen — the 31-year-old sources have identified as the suspected gunman in last night’s attack — just before he was apprehended but did not strike him amid the chaos, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation tells CNN.
Based on a preliminary investigation of the incident so far, including witness statements, authorities currently believe it is likely Allen opened fire one to two times, followed by the Secret Service officer firing three to four rounds, the source said.
The FBI is investigating the scene and the ballistic vest worn by an officer who was shot in order to confirm the number of rounds fired during the incident, the source said.
The preliminary investigation so far has also determined Allen is believed to have used a stairwell to move from his hotel room at the Washington Hilton to the terrace level, with his firearms carried in a bag. Video shows Allen then rushing past a security checkpoint before he was tackled by law enforcement.
In addition to the ongoing forensic examination, the source said federal investigators have interviewed Allen’s relatives, who are being cooperative.
Profilers from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit have also been brought in to work the investigation, the source said, as authorities continue to identify a specific motive for the attack.
Justice Department asks preservation group to abandon White House ballroom lawsuit
The Justice Department asked the nation’s leading historic preservation group to drop its lawsuit seeking to stop the president from building a White House ballroom, saying the threat to Donald Trump on Saturday shows the space is needed “for the safety and security of the President.”
“Put simply, your lawsuit puts the lives of the President, his family, and his staff at grave risk,” the department’s civil division head, Brett Shumate, wrote in a letter to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
He continued, “I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of a lawsuit that literally serves no purpose except to stop President Trump no matter the cost.”
Administrative officials have argued in court that the proposed ballroom “advances critical national-security objectives.” A federal judge, however, called the assertion “incredible, if not disingenuous.”
There are plans for a highly sophisticated bunker under the proposed ballroom. But the National Trust for Historic Preservation has repeatedly said Trump is erroneously conflating the bunker with the above-ground addition.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote Sunday on X that the lawsuit was a “passing aesthetic gripe of a single person” that “cannot possibly justify delaying the construction of a secure facility for the President to do his job.”
Shumate said that if the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not drop its lawsuit by Monday morning, the administration would move to dismiss the case.
FBI seeking to clarify timeline of when family notified police of suspect's writings
The Trump administration is trying to clarify the timeline of when the suspected gunman’s family learned of his writings — and when they notified local police in Connecticut, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The White House originally told CNN that suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen’s brother notified the New London Police Department of an alleged “manifesto” Allen had sent to his family members minutes before the incident Saturday night. At that time, a White House official said the family notified police, and that contact also came minutes before the incident.
However, a White House and an administration official now say the timeline is in flux. While the suspect did send what some in the administration are calling a “manifesto” to his family roughly 10 minutes before the incident, one source said the family did not read or report the writings to local law enforcement until after the event.
Another source, though, said the FBI is still actively investigating the matter and was hesitant to confirm precisely both when the family learned of the writings and when they notified law enforcement.
