Cole Allen pleaded not guilty on Monday to federal charges in an alleged attempt on President Donald Trump’s life in Washington, D.C., The Hill reported.
Allen was arraigned in federal court with shackles around his wrist after his April 25 arrest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, according to the outlet. Allen is accused of rushing past security with multiple weapons and previously-written plans to shoot Trump and any other Trump administration officials within reach.
The suspect is charged with attempted presidential assassination, assaulting a Secret Service agent with a deadly weapon and two other gun charges. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Allen’s legal team previously filed a motion to disqualify United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from prosecuting the case because they attended the D.C. dinner and were victims of the crime, The Hill reported. Allen’s team reportedly hinted at the arraignment that it may also seek to disqualify Pirro’s whole office on those grounds.
“That would be quite a request,” Trump-appointed federal judge Trevor McFadden reportedly said in response.
Allen’s alleged rampage marked at least the sixth near-miss attempt on Trump’s life since his first campaign in 2016, a trend unprecedented in U.S. presidential history, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. The alleged gunman booked a room at the hotel that hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner weeks in advance, took a train from California to D.C., bypassed the hotel’s lax security measures, took a photo of himself with weapons in his reserved room and sprinted past metal detectors before agents arrested him, prosecutors claim.
The federal court is holding Allen in jail until trial, according to The Hill.
“Had the defendant achieved his intended outcome, he would have brought about one of the darkest days in American history,” prosecutors wrote in a previous motion requesting pretrial detention.
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