By Evan Perez, CNN
(CNN) — The suspected gunman who charged past a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday has renewed questions about Secret Service protocols and whether there should be changes to the already tight cordon at the annual star-studded event.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, hailed the response as “a massive security success story.”
He said investigators believe the California man who was arrested, Cole Tomas Allen, intended to attack administration officials at the event, based on his writings that investigators are reviewing.
White House officials told CNN that Allen’s family members alerted law enforcement about his possible plans to carry out an attack, but it remains unclear whether the notification happened before or after the incident. His writings, obtained by CNN, included anti-Trump rhetoric.
President Donald Trump’s security detail appears to have responded as trained, immediately covering him, with additional armed agents taking positions overlooking the room to prevent any threats from coming close to the president, according to current and former law enforcement officials experienced in such events.
The incident Saturday follows two previous assassination attempts against Trump — one in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 and then another two months later at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Securing the dinner
While some critics have raised questions about Vice President JD Vance being removed from the dais before the president, the sequence appears to follow the Secret Service procedures, which includes measures that may not be visible.
Video from the Washington Hilton hotel, where the annual dinner takes place, showed the alleged gunman rushing past a group of Secret Service officers who appeared to in a relaxed posture as the event was already underway one floor below.
He was carrying a rifle, a handgun and knives, according to law enforcement officials, and managed to move quickly to a lobby one floor above where the president sat in the massive ballroom that can hold 2,600 people.
“I don’t think it was a security failure,” Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent and CNN analyst who has helped preparations for the annual dinner. “There are things you can always learn. We’re not going to get a zero-risk environment.”
Another federal law enforcement official raised some concerns about surveillance video images that appear to show the Secret Service agents relaxed and caught off guard as the man races through an area where magnetometer machines were set up to screen guests before they entered the ballroom.
“That shouldn’t have happened that way; he should have been stopped before he got into the lobby area,” the federal law enforcement official said.
The Secret Service routinely conducts a review after incidents like this, Wackrow said, and additional surveillance footage will show a more complete picture that could lead to changes.
There have already been discussions within the administration and the Secret Service about how to handle security for these events in the future, multiple sources told CNN, specifically about whether so many