The suspected White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooter donated money to ActBlue, the Democrat fundraising arm, according to reports.
The suspect, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, meant for the money to go to former Vice President Kamala Harris’s (D) presidential campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
The newspaper said officials have not shared a possible motive behind the shooting that happened at the Washington Hilton hotel where President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were in attendance for the event:
In October 2024, Allen donated $25 to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises funds for Democrats, according to the Federal Election Commission. The money was earmarked for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. It was his only political donation listed on the FEC website in the past decade.
Allen, who is registered to vote with no party preference, graduated from CalTech in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at CalTech, he was a member of the school’s Christian fellowship and the nerf club, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The Sunday Times also reported Allen had donated $25 to ActBlue.
“The authorities have not publicly released a motive. If confirmed to have been an attempt on the president’s life, the incident will have been the third such in two years,” the article read.
The news comes as Republicans in Washington, DC, are investigating ActBlue for suspected foreign donations, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) recently said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.
“Jordan explained how big of a powerhouse ActBlue is, raising billions for Democrats every single election cycle. But things began to go a bit sideways for ActBlue during the 2024 election, after ‘their top people in their legal department dealing with fraud prevention resigned,’ Jordan explained,” the outlet said.
The shooting incident happened Saturday evening when the hotel’s ballroom was full of attendees and Trump and his wife were in their seats onstage. Several loud booms were heard moments before they were removed from the room and people began taking cover.
Video footage showed the moment officers escorted the couple out of the room to safety:
The gunman is accused of charging through a magnetometer and shooting a Secret Service member in the chest before being taken into custody.
President Trump held a press conference not long after the dinner was canceled, Breitbart News reported, where the president revealed that the officer who was shot in the chest was wearing a bulletproof vest and was doing “great” after the fact.
Per the Times, Asian American Civic Trust President Dylan Wakayama said Allen tutored several teenagers who are members of the nonprofit, which is based in Torrance.
He said the young people’s opinion of Allen was that he was an intelligent and quiet person.
However, Wakayama said the students “were completely shocked when I told them that this all went down. I think all of us in Torrance would be shocked if this is the man who attempted to kill the president of the United States.”
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