- The claim that the suspected shooter at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association dinner did not fire his weapon before his arrest is still under investigation.
- The rumor appeared to stem from an affidavit in the case against Cole Tomas Allen that did not explicitly say Allen fired a weapon before agents arrested him on April 25, 2026. Federal prosecutors allege Allen transported a weapon across state lines and attempted to assassinate Trump.
- During an April 27, 2026, news conference, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche repeatedly said that, based on the information his department had, Allen had fired a gun and, as a result, federal prosecutors charged him with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
- Because Allen had not yet entered a plea on the charges against him and Snopes could not independently verify his actions on April 25, we leave this claim unrated.
- Snopes will update this report if additional information surfaces. We have contacted the Department of Justice to ask what evidence it had that Allen fired his weapon during the April 25, 2026, shooting and await a reply.
In April 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that the suspected shooter at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association dinner did not fire his weapon before his arrest.
According to the Department of Justice, Cole Tomas Allen tried to enter the White House Correspondents' Association fundraising dinner on April 25, 2026, with the aim of killing U.S. President Donald Trump and as many members of his administration as possible.
Federal agents stopped Allen before he entered the event. One Secret Service agent was shot in the chest but spared injury by a ballistic vest.
One X user who shared the claim phrased it as a question, writing, "Wait a minute — is it true that the WHCA dinner shooter didn't actually discharge his weapon?"
Other users on X (archived) and Threads (archived) shared the same claim.
The claim appeared to have come from a DOJ affidavit in its case against the suspected shooter that did not directly claim that Allen fired a weapon.
However, during an April 27, 2026, news conference, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche repeatedly said that, based on the information his department had, Allen had fired a gun and, as a result, federal prosecutors had charged him with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
Because Allen had not yet entered a plea on the charges against him and Snopes could not independently verify his actions on April 25, we leave this claim unrated.
Snopes contacted the Department of Justice to ask what evidence it had that Allen fired his weapon and await a reply.
The affidavit
According to the DOJ's affidavit from an FBI agent, Allen attempted to gain access to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner at around 8:40 p.m. April 25. The affidavit read:
ALLEN approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun. As he did so, U.S. Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. U.S. Secret Service Officer V.G. was shot once in the chest; Officer V.G. was wearing a ballistic vest at the time.
The affidavit said "Officer V.G." then fired at Allen, who fell to the ground but was not hit. It did not explicitly say Allen fired the shot that hit that officer or any other shots.
An affidavit is a sworn testimony from a person that contains facts that are true to the best of that person's knowledge. Because they only need to be true to the best of a person's knowledge, affidavits do not necessarily accurately reflect an event a person witnessed.
The DOJ used the FBI agent's affidavit to support its charges against Allen, suggesting the department believes the agent's version of events to be true.
Blanche's news conference
The same day the DOJ announced its charges against Allen, reporters twice asked Blanche during a news conference (archived) to confirm whether Allen had fired his weapon.
Blanche replied (at 45:37, emphasis ours) to a question about whether the department had established if Allen fired his weapon that:
All the evidence is being examined very carefully and expeditiously and we'll know more soon. We do believe that, as the complaint lays out, that the suspect — the defendant — fired out of his shotgun and we know that happened, but as far as getting into exacting ballistics, I'm not going to do that today because it's still being looked at and finalized.
About four minutes later, another reporter asked Blanche about the DOJ's affidavit, which did not explicitly say Allen fired a weapon. Blanche said of Allen (at 49:06):
Well, he's charged with violating 924(c) Discharge of a Firearm During a Crime of Violence. So, by definition, that charge means that it was discharged. I can tell you from what I know, with the understanding that we're a day and a half in, that this is the gun that he discharged.
In the livestream of the news conference, Blanche pointed at a poster showing the 12-gauge pump action Mossberg shotgun prosecutors said Allen carried when agents arrested him.
Blanche went on to say that authorities found a spent shotgun shell in the weapon that had not been ejected, suggesting he shot the weapon once but did not reload. Reloading the shotgun would have ejected the empty shell.
At the time of this writing, Allen had not entered a plea on any of the three charges against him, which were: attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, transporting a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. He could face life in prison if found guilty of attempting to assassinate Trump.
Allen could also face 10 years to life in prison if found guilty of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, according to Blanche.
A district judge in Washington, D.C., ordered that Allen be held without bond until a detention hearing on April 30. Allen was due to have a preliminary hearing in his case on May 11, 2026.
Should Allen plead guilty to discharging a firearm during a crime of violence that would constitute his admission that he fired his weapon during the April 25 shooting. If he pleads not guilty, a trial would determine his guilt.
For further reading, Snopes has reported extensively on claims related to the shooting at the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
Sources:
'Affidavit in Support – #1, Att. #1 in United States v. ALLEN (D.D.C., 1:26-Mj-00080) – CourtListener.Com'. CourtListener, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73248870/1/1/united-states-v-allen/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
Coustan, Dave. 'How Shotguns Work'. Howstuffworks, https://science.howstuffworks.com/shotgun5.htm#:~:text=Pump%20Action,fail%20in%20action. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
Forbes Breaking News. 'LIVE: Kash Patel, Todd Blanche And Jeanine Pirro Hold Press Briefing On WHCD Shooting'. YouTube, 27 Apr. 2026, https://www.youtube.com/live/ymEqCmmUkGY?t=1708s.
'From Left, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C.,...' Getty Images, 28 Apr. 2026, https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/from-left-jeanine-pirro-the-u-s-attorney-for-washington-d-c-news-photo/2272955625.
'United States v. ALLEN, 1:26-Mj-00080 - CourtListener.Com'. CourtListener, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73248870/united-states-v-allen/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
