SpyWeek: Accused Trump Assassin Roamed at Will with Guns, Mocked Hotel Security
Also: Tulsi's absence, Patel's capers, alarm over Iranian & Chinese hacks of US infrastructure amid cyber defense cuts, Bill Burns tutors Trump on Iran, a new film on "the Jewish James Bond" and more
Shooter Roamed: White House Correspondents’ Association dinner gunman Cole Allen marvelled at how easy it was for him to walk about the Hilton Hotel fully armed. “Like, the one thing that I immediately noticed walking into the hotel is the sense of arrogance. I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat,” he wrote in a note obtained by the New York Post. Cole had booked a room in the hotel and smuggled in a shotgun, handgun and knives, reports said. On Saturday, he wrote, “The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before.” He continued, “Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again,” adding: “Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit,” invoking a nickname for the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun. “Actually insane.” The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported Sunday that the Trump administration “provided a lower level of security for the White House correspondents’ dinner than it has for other gatherings of high-ranking officials, even though the president and many Cabinet members were in attendance.” That was a decision by DHS secretary Markwayne Mullins, in accord with past practice for the annual event, but will no doubt undergo a critical review. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Democrats and some members of the news media for the violence, which she attributed to a “left-wing cult of hatred against the president and all of those who support him and work for him.” Critical social media denizens quickly responded with quotes and videos of Trump encouraging or celebrating political violence.
Where is Tulsi? It’s a question long asked by many a close observer of the Trump administration’s national security apparatus, such as it is, with real estate operators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’ s son-in-law, leading diplomatic talks with Russia and Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio doing double duty as national security adviser, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe at the Situation Room table for the mid-February planning season for the war on Iran, not the nominal head of U.S. intelligence.
