On Saturday, the day of the event, Allen came and went from his room multiple times, and looked up the president’s schedule using a “civic tracker” website at around 6:26 p.m., according to prosecutors.
Then at 8:03 p.m., just three minutes after the official start of the event, he stood dressed in a black dress shirt, a bright red tie tucked into his pants, and armed with weapons, to take a photo of himself in the mirror, the hotel bed visible behind him. A plastic bag is seen on the hotel room desk in the foreground. The photo is included in the prosecutors’ memo.
A digitally enhanced close-up version of the photo included in the memorandum, with annotations by the Justice Department, shows Allen wearing a small leather bag, a shoulder holster, a sheathed knife, pliers and wire cutters, according to prosecutors. The memo says they appear to match items recovered later by law enforcement.
A Justice Department court filing includes images of a selfie Cole Allen allegedly took in his hotel room shortly before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting on April 25, 2026. (Evidence markers added by DOJ.)
Ten minutes after taking the photo, Allen rechecked the “Presidential Schedule – CivicTracker” webpage before leaving his hotel room a couple of minutes later, prosecutors say.
According to the DOJ timeline, he was on his phone searching live videos of the dinner until just before he rushed the magnetometers.
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