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TORRANCE, Calif. — A former FBI criminal profiler says the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump and other high-level government officials Saturday wasn’t simply a crazed gunman, but that something deeper was afoot in his psyche.
Cole Allen allegedly charged a Secret Service checkpoint in the Washington Hilton on Saturday night during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, an event attended not just by the president and other elected officials, but by presidential Cabinet members and other government appointees. He allegedly opened fire before falling to the ground and being taken into custody.
Allen sent communication to a family member before the alleged attack, according to authorities, rationalizing what he acknowledged was a mission that would likely severely harm or kill him. He allegedly said his motivations were political, and painted himself as a savior of the oppressed. At points, officials said, he also noted that there were certain people he hoped wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.
Law enforcement officers detain Cole Allen following an alleged shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2026. (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)
Jim Clemente, a retired 22-year FBI veteran who helped crack the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks cases, said Allen expected to die in the attack and that his actions were so extreme that he likely wanted to end his own life.
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“He seems, especially through those communications that he sent, he seems like a rational human being who has human empathy. He doesn’t sound like a psychopath,” said Clemente. “He doesn’t sound like somebody who is unstable mentally. Certainly, emotionally, that’s a different story … nothing that I have read or seen indicates that he was having some kind of psychotic break or that he would be schizophrenic.”
A photo of Cole Allen in a graduation gown and cap from 2025. (Cole Allen/LinkedIn)
“He basically ran through a security checkpoint knowing that there would be numerous armed guards right there, and he’s firing a weapon,” Clemente continued. “But for the circumstances where he apparently tripped and fell, and they pounced on him, he most likely would have been taken down in a hail of gunfire. Now, he’s not stupid. He must have known this. And that might have been part of his motivation, that he didn’t have the will to live, and once you lose the will to keep yourself alive, other people’s lives become much less important.”
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Clemente explained that a person willing to commit such violence rationalizes and minimizes their actions in order to justify them. In this case, he said, Allen convinced himself his end goal of killing the president and cabinet officials was noble, and that he had a good reason for doing so.
“He didn’t have a general disrespect for human life, he had a very specific disrespect for human life,” said Clemente. “And I think that went along with his own disrespect for his own life.
Resurfaced video from 2017 shows Cole Allen, the suspect in the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, speaking to ABC7 Los Angeles about an invention he created for wheelchairs as a student at the California Institute of Technology. (KABC)
“Obviously, he was outwardly motivated by the actions of politicians, which is why he targeted them, and this is probably something that he has expressed in his life recently, maybe for a long time,” Clemente said. “But clearly, he’s gotten to the point where that rose to a level — or his own self-image lowered to a level — where he felt like he needed to do something to feel better about his own image or what he perceived the world to be at this time.“
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By many accounts, Allen was intelligent and a high achiever.
In September 2013, he enrolled at the highly competitive California Institute of Technology, known as Caltech, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, graduating in 2017.
In the summer of 2014, he wrote that he landed another competitive spot as a summer undergraduate research student fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he said he contributed to astrophysics research.
A photo from a March 8, 2016 CalTech engineering competition appears to show Cole Allen (C) standing over a table. (CalTech)
In 2022, he enrolled at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and three years later earned a master’s degree in computer science.
He was a Democratic activist who attended at least one “No Kings” protest, and once donated $25 to ActBlue, the progressive digital fundraising platform, which was earmarked for Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential bid.
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Before the attack, Allen was a teacher at C2 Education, a massive nationwide tutoring, test prep and college admissions counseling organization. He won C2’s teacher of the month award in December 2024. He also developed his own video games.
Cole Allen appears in federal court for an initial appearance at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Monday, April 27, 2026. Allen faces several federal charges after authorities allege he stormed the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in an attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump and other Cabinet officials. (Dana Verkouteren/Unknown)
“Generally, this is a result of severe depression and anxiety,” said Clemente. “Maybe it’s masked, maybe it isn’t, maybe it’s very outward. I don’t know. I don’t know if he ever got any treatment for any of that, but generally it’s done by people who lose their willingness to live.”
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“He had some way to convince himself in these rationalizations that he’d feel better about himself,” he continued. “He’d be some kind of hero, and that would make him feel better about himself and it would be worth it to lose his life doing this.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Allen’s attorneys for comment.