Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the suspected gunman who opened fire outside of the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night appears to have been targeting administration officials, “likely including the president.”
“We’re still looking into that,” Blanche said on NBC News’ Meet the Press Sunday, while cautioning that the investigation is still in its preliminary stages. “We know that there were some writings, and we’ve already spoken with several witnesses who knew him.”
President Donald Trump said on Fox News the suspect had written a “manifesto.”
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As far as the exact threats that may have been communicated beforehand, “we’re still actively investigating that evidence,” Blanche told NBC anchor Kristen Welker.
“We do believe it was administration officials,” Blanche said. “Obviously, President Trump is a member of the administration, the head of it.”
The suspect “barely broke the perimeter” of the event, he added.
“And by barely, I mean by a few feet,” Blanche said.
U.S. Secret Service Director Matthew Quinn made a similar remark on X Sunday.
The suspect, whose name has not yet been publicly released by officials, “underestimated the protective capabilities of the U.S. Secret Service, and was stopped at first contact,” Quinn wrote.
“The strength of our layered security posture was evident, with a myriad of countermeasures still ahead,” Quinn said.
Law enforcement currently believes that the suspect traveled from Los Angeles, California, then to Chicago, Illinois, before getting to Washington D.C., Blanche said. From there, he checked into the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was taking place.
That suspect is now in custody. While he was taken to the hospital for evaluation, he was not struck by gunfire, interim Washington, D.C., police chief Jeffery Carroll said on Saturday night.
No guests, including Trump and other officials, were injured. One officer was shot, Trump said at a press briefing, but saved by the fact that he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang, a senior White House correspondent for CBS News, said the shooting was a “harrowing moment” for everyone in attendance. In a statement, she expressed gratitude for the Secret Service.
“Our dinner exists to celebrate the First Amendment and the hard daily work of the journalists who defend it. Last night, those journalists showed exactly the kind of calm and courage that work demands, jumping into reporting immediately after the incident unfolded,” she said in a statement. “We are proud of everyone in that room.”
The WHCA board will meet to assess what happened and how to proceed, Jiang added.
Speaking to CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, Trump said he wants to reschedule the dinner, and thinks it should be done “within 30 days” with more security.
“I think it’s really bad for a crazy person to be able to cancel something like this,” he said.
Recalling the night, Trump said that as he was being told to “get down” by Secret Service agents, he thought, “You know, I’ve been through this before a couple of times.”
There was an attempt on Trump’s life during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In another incident, a man tried to assassinate Trump as he played on his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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