Press dinner gunman pleads not guilty to attempting to assassinate Trump

By Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — The man accused of running past Secret Service with loaded firearms and knives in an attempt to kill President Donald Trump during the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last month pleaded not guilty to the four charges he faces.

Prosecutors say Cole Tomas Allen on April 26 stormed through a security checkpoint at the hotel where the annual press dinner was being held while the president and top administration officials were on a different floor.

Allen appeared before a federal judge in Washington, DC, on Monday, hands and feet shackled together and stood by his attorney as they entered the not guilty plea on his behalf.

He has been indicted on charges including attempting to assassinate a president and assaulting an officer.

The judge presiding over the case, Trump-appointed Trevor McFadden, pressed Allen’s attorneys on an earlier motion they had made seeking to remove US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro and other administration officials from the case.

Allen’s attorneys argued that because Pirro and others were at the dinner and may have been targets according to their version of events, she should be recused from the case.

“We assume a lot about how victims feel,” defense attorney Eugene Ohm said during Monday’s hearing, adding that Pirro is “very close friends with Trump” and should be removed for that alone.

“I’d be very surprised if they were victims in any legal sense,” McFadden said, noting that they did not see the incident.

Ohm said he wanted more information on how Pirro’s office, which is prosecuting Allen, is structured in order to determine if the entire office should also be recused.

“It’s likely we will be asking for the entire office” to be removed from the case, Ohm said, adding that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche should also be recused because of his presence at the dinner.

McFadden, appearing skeptical, said removing the entire DC US Attorney office “would be quite a request” and told prosecutors to file their response and provide a definitive view on whether Pirro and Blanche were victims.

The next hearing in the case is set for June 29.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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