Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) suggested that the attack on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner may have been “fake” because she couldn’t believe there would be so many assassination attempts targeting one president.
“Back to the shooting… has there ever been a president have this many close ‘attempts’ on their life? Maybe it’s lax gun laws, maybe it’s lack of mental health funding, or maybe it’s fake… who knows,” Crockett wrote on her Jasmine For US Threads page just hours after the attack.
Crockett made the post shortly after law enforcement detained a man who rushed into the Washington Hilton with a pump action shotgun. The man, who was tackled by Secret Service agents, has been identified as Cole Thomas Allen of California.
Crockett, who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for the Texas Senate Democratic nomination earlier this year, took a less conspiratorial approach on her official accounts. In a post on her official X account, Crockett condemned political violence.
“The political violence is unacceptable and must stop,” she wrote. “I am grateful that everyone attending tonight’s WHCD is safe.”
Trump has been the target of multiple assassination attempts and was shot in the ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. A few months later, a man armed with a rifle attempted to take Trump out while he was golfing in Florida, but was chased away by the Secret Service.
Evidence from the Justice Department appears to show that Allen was targeting Trump and other top administration officials. An FBI affidavit unsealed on Monday afternoon showed an email Allen is said to have sent to his family saying that he was no longer willing to allow “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.”
The message also identified potential targets.
“Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest,” the email stated.
The affidavit further indicates that the attack appeared to have been planned for weeks. Allen booked a room at the Washington Hilton on April 6, then traveled by train from the Los Angeles area to Chicago on April 21, arriving April 23 before continuing on to Washington, D.C.
Prior to the attack at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Allen reportedly shared posts comparing Trump to Hitler and posts that suggested the attack on Trump in Butler that left one of the president’s supporters dead was a hoax.
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