The U.S. Secret Service did a reasonable but imperfect job in protecting President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other guests at the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night.
The event at the Washington Hilton saw more than 2,500 people crowd into the hotel ballroom. Shortly after the guests had been seated and the dinner had begun, however, Cole Tomas Allen rushed through a Secret Service magnetometer checkpoint, charged up a flight of stairs, and fired two shots, lightly wounding one agent (who was wearing a bulletproof vest). He was then tackled and arrested outside of the ballroom entrance. Here’s an outline of what the Secret Service did well and not so well.
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The Good
• The layered security system worked. Allen was unable to breach the ballroom. He didn’t get within line of sight to Trump. And unlike with the previous assassination attempts on Trump, Allen was unable to get close to Trump through gaps in the security plan.
• The agent who took a bullet did what Agent Tim McCarthy did, ironically at the very same location, in protecting President Ronald Reagan 45 years ago. He stood tall and confronted the threat to the president. In an era of partisanship and national discord, this agent underlined the selfless, apolitical patriotism that ultimately motivates the Secret Service.
The Bad
• Allen was able to rush past the magnetometer security checkpoint and the numerous Secret Service agents and officers posted there. None of those at the checkpoint appeared to be facing outward toward any approaching threats. In addition, all of the personnel assigned to the checkpoint chased/faced toward Allen. Some of them should have remained in place in case Allen was a diversion for another attacker/larger group.
• The Secret Service’s Protective Intelligence Division failed to detect Allen’s threat prior to his attack. While Allen was apparently not on any threat lists, Trump’s attendance at the dinner was made public long in advance. The Secret Service anticipates that potential assassins will make travel plans to coincide with those of one of its protectees. Because Allen was a hotel guest, he was able to avoid the first layer of security. Questions will be asked whether the Secret Service missed any warning signs.
• Dinner attendees report that their tickets were only cursorily checked and that officers manning the magnetometers accepted at face value attendee claims that innocuous items in their possession had caused the magnetometers to trigger. Had an assassin pretended they were a guest or used the innocuous item excuse to conceal a firearm, they possibly could have entered the ballroom.
• As the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli observes, too many tables were crowded into the ballroom. This complicated the evacuation of Cabinet members and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who are in the line of succession. On that point, while we are likely to find out that the Secret Service protested having so many in the line of succession attend the dinner, the Secret Service must ultimately do what its protectees want.
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Mixed
• The Vice Presidential Protective Division was notably quicker in evacuating Vance than was the Presidential Protective Division with Trump. Still, this was likely a tactical decision to allow the Counter Assault Team to take up position to provide cover for the president’s evacuation. Agents are trained to anticipate diversionary attacks and may have assessed that the threat had been stopped at the entrance, thus mitigating Trump’s immediate vulnerability. Their focus would then have been on ensuring the route to the motorcade was secure. That said, detail agents did not rapidly surround Trump with sufficient numbers and urgency.
Top line: the threat was stopped and no protectee or other member of the public was injured. But lessons, as always, must be learned.
