Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,
The head of the U.S. Secret Service is defending security arrangements at last Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, saying he would not change a thing about the security plan, even as questions continue to swirl around the shooting and his leadership of the agency.
“The site was set up perfectly, I will tell you I would not change the site again,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran told Fox News host Will Cain Thursday.
Curran said one agent was shot at “point-blank range” by suspect Cole Tomas Allen as he dashed through a security checkpoint inside the Washington Hilton hotel, where President Donald Trump and thousands of guests had gathered for the annual dinner.
“Our officer heroically returned fire while being shot [at] point blank range in the chest with a shotgun,” Curran asserted. “[The officer] was able to get off five shots. It’s great training.”
The suspect was not struck by the agent’s return fire, Curran explained, alleging that Allen, 31, fell after hitting his knee and was subdued by other federal agents near the top of the stairs from the ballroom where Trump, the first lady, and top administration officials were dining.
Curran tried to stress that the actual place where Allen fell and was subdued was nearly 120 yards away from the podium where Trump and Vice President JD Vance were seated, along with top officers of the White House Press Corps Association. Curran argued that 120 yards is “a long distance to get to.” But Allen was just yards away from a short stairwell leading to a jam-packed ballroom filled with 2,600 guests, including numerous congressional leaders and Cabinet officials.
“If he had gotten through those ballroom doors, it would have been a catastrophic,” Rich Staropoli, a former Secret Service agent who protected four presidents and served as a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, told RealClearPolitics.
Former agents and other sources in the Secret Service community also noted that Thomas Crooks, the would-be assassin who nearly killed Trump in July 2024 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was shooting from a distance of roughly 130 to 150 yards away from Trump and managed to strike his ear before a Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed him.
Curran also pushed back on reports that the officer who was shot and saved by his bullet-proof vest may have been hit by friendly fire. He pointedly added that agents “who weren’t in the game when they were agents” were criticizing the security plan and execution.
Source: ZeroHedge News
