Cole Allen, the 31-year-old California man accused of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 25, pleaded not guilty Monday morning in a Washington, D.C., federal court to four charges, and his defense team's attempt to force top Justice Department officials off the case drew a curt response from the bench. Initially, his team is requesting that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro be removed from the case due to a conflict of interest, but that is only where the defense is starting.
Allen, shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, entered his plea to attempting to assassinate the president of the United States, discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, transporting a firearm across state lines, and assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said more charges are possible.
The plea came days after Allen's defense attorneys filed a motion Friday seeking to disqualify both Pirro and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from the prosecution. The argument: both officials were inside the ballroom of the Washington Hilton when shots rang out, making them potential victims, and therefore conflicted. Judge Trevor McFadden was unimpressed.
Allen's public defender, Eugene Ohm, told Judge McFadden on Monday that the defense would likely seek to remove Pirro's entire office from the case. When Ohm added it was unlikely they would push to boot the entire Department of Justice over Blanche's involvement, McFadden replied dryly: "That would be quite a request."
The defense filing, submitted Friday, framed the conflict-of-interest claim in sweeping terms. As Fox News Digital reported, the motion asked:
"As this case proceeds closer to trial, the country and the world will continue to wonder, how can the American justice system permit a victim to prosecute a criminal defendant in a case involving them? Or even, how can one of the victim's closest friends prosecute the alleged perpetrator of the offense?"
The filing cited Pirro's friendship with President Trump and both officials' presence at the dinner as grounds for disqualification. "Given U.S. Attorney Pirro's friendship with the President and her and Acting A.G. Blanche's attendance at the event at the center of this prosecution, the law necessitates their disqualification," the defense wrote.
AP News reported that Allen allegedly ran through security and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer during the April 25 dinner. The defense attorneys, Eugene Ohm and Tezira Abe, argued in their filing that Pirro and Blanche "were potential victims and targets in what they have described as an attempted 'mass shooting.'"
Pirro did not flinch. Responding Friday to the defense motion, she told Fox News Digital simply: "We will evaluate the motion and respond in court."
She followed with a harder line:
"We will not tolerate people who come to the District of Columbia to engage in antidemocratic acts of political violence; and we will prosecute all such acts to the fullest extent of the law."
That posture is consistent with Pirro's broader approach since taking office as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, where she has signaled a willingness to pursue high-profile, politically charged cases aggressively.
The New York Post noted that Allen's lawyers also cited Pirro's public comments about the shooting and subsequent court proceedings as evidence of a personal interest that could create at least the appearance of a conflict. Pirro had posted on X after the incident: "I've been taken out of the ballroom after the sounds of shots fired."
The defense argument, in other words, rests on the idea that a prosecutor who was present at an alleged crime scene cannot fairly oversee the case. It is a legitimate legal question, but the judge's tone Monday suggests the court sees the broader DOJ-removal request as overreach.
Pirro's involvement in this case comes at a moment when the Department of Justice is already navigating a string of politically charged prosecutions that have drawn intense scrutiny from both sides of the aisle. Her office's handling of the Allen case will be watched closely, not only for the legal merits but for what it signals about DOJ's willingness to stand firm when defense attorneys try to weaponize political connections as a disqualification tool.
The conflict-of-interest claim also touches Acting Attorney General Blanche. The defense motion noted that Blanche was in the Washington Hilton ballroom when the shooting occurred. Blanche has not publicly commented on the motion, but he recently made headlines for a different reason.
Just The News reported that Pirro drew backlash from gun-rights groups over comments promising jail for anyone bringing an unlicensed gun into Washington, D.C. "You bring a gun into the District, you mark my words, you're going to jail," Pirro said on Fox News. Blanche responded publicly, posting: "This Administration and Department of Justice will fiercely protect Second Amendment rights." The episode showed the two officials are not always perfectly aligned, but it also showed the DOJ closing ranks when the institution itself comes under fire.
Questions about judicial impartiality in politically sensitive cases are nothing new in Washington. A federal magistrate in D.C. recently drew scrutiny for perceived political bias in handling another high-profile case, underscoring how deeply the public trust issue runs in the capital's courts.
The four charges Allen faces are serious. Attempting to assassinate the president of the United States alone carries the heaviest weight. Combined with the firearms and assault charges, Allen is looking at the full force of federal law, and Pirro has signaled that additional charges may follow.
Allen, a Torrance, California, resident, is scheduled to return to court for a status conference on June 29 at 10:30 a.m. By then, the court will likely have ruled on the defense motion, or at least heard full briefing from both sides.
President Trump posted a photo on Truth Social showing law enforcement detaining Allen at the scene of the April 25 shooting incident. The image was a stark reminder of what happened that night at the Washington Hilton, and of the gravity of the charges now before the court.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department continues to manage multiple sensitive investigations that test the line between law enforcement and political perception. The Allen case may become the most consequential of them all.
Strip away the legal jargon and the defense motion boils down to a simple gambit: if you can't beat the charges, try to disqualify the people bringing them. Allen's attorneys are not arguing their client didn't do what he's accused of doing. They're arguing that the wrong people are prosecuting him for it.
That's a procedural play, not a substantive one. And Judge McFadden's one-line response, "That would be quite a request", suggests he sees it the same way.
The conflict-of-interest question deserves a fair hearing. Every defendant is entitled to that. But there is something deeply uncomfortable about a defense strategy that treats the prosecutors' physical proximity to an alleged assassination attempt as a shield for the man accused of carrying it out. Pirro and Blanche were in that ballroom. So were hundreds of other Americans. The fact that they survived does not disqualify them from doing their jobs.
If anything, it sharpens the obligation.
A man allegedly ran past the Secret Service and fired a shotgun at a dinner attended by the President of the United States. He has now pleaded not guilty. The system will do what the system does, slowly, methodically, and with every procedural safeguard intact. But the country should be clear-eyed about what's happening here: the defense is trying to turn the prosecutors into the story. The real story walked into that courtroom Monday in shackles.
When someone allegedly tries to kill the president, the justice system owes the country a full, aggressive prosecution, not a game of musical chairs over who gets to bring the case.
