WASHINGTON – A former head of the Secret Service has called for outside reviews of the protective agency's handling of theWhite House Correspondents' Association Dinner, citing what he sees as potentially serious missteps that enabled a shooting suspect to breach a security perimeter.
"It's the right thing to do," John Magaw exclusively told USA TODAY in a series of recent interviews since the April 25 event. "You don't want to investigate it yourself. The public won't believe it."
Twoother reviewsare already underway in the aftermath of the shootout at the sprawling Washington Hilton after an armed suspect sprinted past agents, causing at least one to open fire and get hit in his bullet-proof vest.
One of those reviews is by the White House, which on April 27 said it will convene the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, and the other is bySen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee has oversight of the Secret Service.
Security officials evacuate U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as a possible shooter opened fire during the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026. President Donald Trump, who was in attendance, said a shooter was apprehended in a social media post.Trump and first lady Melania Trump were evacuated out of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner minutes after it began, as attendees took cover on the floor. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />
Trump officials evacuate White House press dinner amid reported shooting
Security officials evacuate U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as a possible shooter opened fire duringthe annual White House Correspondents' Association dinnerin Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026. President Donald Trump, who was in attendance, said a shooter was apprehended in a social media post.Trumpand first ladyMelania Trumpwere evacuated out of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner minutes after it began, as attendees took cover on the floor.
The Secret Service is also conducting its own after-action review of the incident, in which it subdued the alleged gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, and evacuated PresidentDonald Trump, Vice PresidentJD Vanceand other leaders, a senior law enforcement official familiar with the various investigations told USA TODAY.
But those reviews will not suffice, Magaw said, given a security breach that was serious enough to force a mass evacuation of government leaders and the eventual shutdown of the annual dinner.
The president, vice president, Speaker of the HouseMike Johnsonand Cabinet members in the direct line of presidential succession were all present.
“If he had gotten that close with an explosive device,” Magaw said, “he could have decapitated the whole leadership of our country.”
Allen, 31, appeared in federal court in Washington, DC, on April 27 on charges ofattempting to assassinateTrump,transporting a firearm and ammunitionacross state lines with the intent to commit a felony and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. He could face life in prison if convicted.
He faces a detention hearing April 30, and prosecutors argued in an April 29 pretrial detention memo that he should remain in custody pending trial because he poses an "intolerable risk of danger to the community" if released.
The Justice Department acknowledged the seriousness of the breach in anew court filing April 29, in which it argued for detaining Allen until trial.
"Had the defendant achieved his intended outcome, he would have brought about one of the darkest days in American history," Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for District of Columbia, said in the memo filed ahead of Allen's detention hearing.
Allen, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol, two knives, four daggers, "and enough ammunition to take dozens of lives, was apprehended by USSS officers mere feet away from the ballroom where his primary target was located, along with other members of the Cabinet," Pirro wrote.
Given the potential missteps, Magaw said the FBI should conduct an operational review of Secret Service operations that night. Also, he said, "there must also be a congressional and Senate hearing pretty quickly on this."
A 26-year veteran of the Secret Service, Magaw led the agency from 1992 to 1993 before being appointed to lead two other federal security agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and theTransportation Security Administration, which he stood up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
An unqualified success, federal officials and many experts say
The Secret Service and FBI did not comment when asked by USA TODAY about a former agency director’s calls for FBI and congressional probes.
The dinner marked the third time in three years that the Secret Service allowed a suspected gunman to get close enough to potentially threaten Trump’s life.
One shooter was killed by Secret Service countersnipers in July 2024 after heshot an AR-style rifle from a nearby roof at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania,grazing Trump's earand killing a spectator. Weeks later, agents found an armed man in bushes near where Trump was golfing in South Florida.
But the senior law enforcement official − who is familiar with the Secret Service posture at the hotel − sharply pushed back on Magaw’s comments. That official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly.
Numerous top law enforcement officials have praised the agency's performance, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche calling it a "massive security success story" at an April 27 news briefing.
"The strength of our layered security posture was evident, with a myriad of countermeasures" between the gunman and the VIP dinner guests,the Secret Service saidof its efforts in a statement on X the day after the dinner.
More:What went wrong? How did Secret Service allow shooter to get so close to Trump?
Others, though, already have called for reforms.
Johnson, one of the attendees rushed out of the ballroom that night by his Secret Service detail, said April 27 that the agency needs to “tighten up” and rethink its security protocols.
'The two things can be right' about the Secret Service performance
Before falling and being subdued by agents, Allen was able to sprint through an initial security perimeter armed withmultiple guns and knives, according to federal charging documents and the new detention memo.
Allen never made it to the stairs leading to a lower level where the dinner was held. If he had, the senior law enforcement official said, he would have encountered agents in the hallway and more guarding the doors to the cavernous ballroom where about 2,500 attendees had begun eating their salads. Secret Service Counter Assault Teams were also there to evacuate Trump and other protectees.
One veteran former agency official said he agreed with the Secret Service, but also with some of Magaw’s concerns.
"The two things can be right at the same time,” saidJonathan Wackrow, who shielded President Barack Obama while assigned to the agency’s Presidential Protection Division before leaving the Secret Service in 2014.
“The Secret Service security plan for the hotel on that night worked. Full stop,” Wackrow told USA TODAY. “There was no loss of life. The president was not in danger,” and layers of security were in place to prevent him from getting into the ballroom.
“Yet you can’t be complacent,” Wackrow, who has professionally worked many of the annual correspondents' association dinners and now runshis own security firm. “There are ways to improve.”
“The Secret Service, I’m not speaking for them, but I would expect that they will conduct this mission assurance review to see, 'hey, where can we get better?'” Wackrow said.
Not the first outside review of the Secret Service
Magaw acknowledged that Secret Service and other security personnel acted quickly to subdue Allen after he sprinted through a checkpoint and toward the dinner wielding a long rifle just after 8:30 p.m.
But he said a broader and more independent review needs to be done, similar to those he said were conducted after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and attempts against Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
The FBI is the right agency to do such a review, Magaw said, given its close working relationship with the Secret Service. The two already work together, he noted, on investigating the suspects of such attempts, including in the current case with Allen.
Advertisement
The FBI and Secret Service would work together on the kind of probe Magaw envisions.
But, he said, “FBI oversees and agrees to the final report, no chance of cover-up. Together they would report to Congress and the American people” on their findings.
Even if the Secret Service did everything right according to the narrowly defined mission of protecting the ballroom, Magaw said, its mission likely needs to be expanded in the current threat environment − especially given the prior two assassination attempts.
More:From Caltech to WHCA shooting suspect: FBI retraces a cross-country trail
The Butler shooter, identified by the FBI as 20‑year‑old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was fatally shot by Secret Service agents – but only after getting offat least eight rounds. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle ultimatelyresigned under pressure, and the agency pledged to beef up security so that none of its several dozen protectees are that vulnerable again.
‘Wandering around, touching things’
Magaw said he was concerned by the fact that in the current case, Allen was able to check into the hotel with numerous weapons on April 24, and then, as the dinner was underway, go down a stairwell with guns and knives in a black duffel bag and pop out into a hallway near an initial security perimeter, as court documents allege.
The senior law enforcement official acknowledged to USA TODAY that agents were not guarding the stairwell even though it brought the suspect to right near the security checkpoint. The official said legal and privacy laws would have prevented agents from questioning him at check-in – and even in the stairwell with the black duffel full of weapons he was carrying – due to privacy laws and because it was outside the security perimeter in a public part of the hotel.
Magaw said he was also extremely concerned by what happened next.
At least some of the Secret Service agents and other security personnel appeared not to be paying attention at the initial checkpoint where magnetometers had been set up to check all dinner guests for weapons, Magaw said, citing his own review of the available security footage.
By then, the metal detectors had been mostly disassembled, and it was up to the agents to make sure whoever approached was assessed for potential threats. Those who wanted to pass through would then be “wanded” by agents using hand-held magnetometers for weapons, he said.
But Magaw said the video showed security personnel “just wandering around, touching things" instead of being on the lookout for approaching − and especially suspicious − individuals when Allen blew through, "and that should never have happened.”
Magaw also questioned whether there were enough Secret Service agents and other security personnel well in front of, and at, that initial checkpoint, and why they didn’t erect the kind of barrier he said is commonly used by the agency in such situations to stop potential assailants.
As a result, he said, “this guy didn’t lose pace when he came through there at about a 10-second 100-yard run.”
The federal law enforcement official said agents stopped Allen within seconds of him breaching the checkpoint, before he could descend stairs to the same level of the hotel where the ballroom was located. The new DOJ filing, though, says Allen "fell to the ground" on his own before being restrained.
Agents ‘had lead flying around them’
But Magaw said that failure to proactively stop and search the suspect also meant that agents needed to turn around and train their weapons on him instead of tackling him – potentially firing and hitting fellow security personnel and bystanders in the process.
That meant the agents who ultimately did subdue Allen “had lead flying around them” from their colleagues’ guns, Magaw said.
Asked if it was possible the Secret Service agent struck in the vest was accidentally hit by friendly fire, Magaw said, “I would not overlook that at all.”
The senior law enforcement officialpreviouslytold USA TODAY that a federal review of witness and agent statements is consistent with the suspected gunmanbeing the one who shotthe agent, in part based on the fact that no other Secret Service officers fired their weapons.
"It wouldn't surprise me if it turns out the agent was shot by the person charged with that crime, but it'd be wildly inappropriate for me to comment on," Blanche said at an April 29 press conference.
Kate Schweit, a 20-year FBI agent, prosecutor and "active shooter" expert, told USA TODAY on April 29 that there are often conflicting accounts of what happened in such incidents. Schweit said that ballistics and forensic evidence will determine whether the agent's vest was struck by buckshot from the suspect's pump-action shotgun or from a bullet fired by a law enforcement officer, possibly by ricochet.
The senior law enforcement official said the FBI already is handling the ballistics portion of the ongoing investigation into the incident. To date, the official said, the investigation indicates that Allen fired his weapon and the agent returned fire, though the new Justice Department memo says Allenfired down the hallway− and not at the agent.
So far, Allen has not been charged with anything in connection with the shooting injury to the agent. Pirro said April 27there could be additional charges"as this investigation continues to unfold."
A vast hotel, a narrowly defined Secret Service mission
Thehistoric hotel, the scene of anassassination attempt against Reaganin 1981 remains open for other business during the Correspondents’ Association Dinner every year, including bars and restaurants. That makes it a virtually impossible location to lock down, Wackrow said.
But the Secret Service, per protocol that has existed for decades, is technically responsible just for making sure no one gets near enough to the president and other protectees to do them harm, Wackrow, Magaw and the federal official all acknowledged.
Magaw said it is important, going forward, that the agency proactively protects – or at least surveils – a far broader swath of the hotel and its many access points.
If surrounding stairwells had been covered “at least one floor above” the event, he said, Allen “would have been questioned."
‘I expected cameras at every bend… metal detectors out the wazoo’
The Secret Service has been sharply criticized before for failure to more aggressively sweep sites where Trump would be – first in Butler and thenat a Florida golf coursein September 2024 where would-be assassin Ryan Routh was hiding with a high-powered rifle.
Agents spotted theRouth concealed in nearby bushesand opened fire before he could reach the former president. He wasfound guilty of trying to assassinateTrump a year later andsentenced to lifein prison.
In a letter sent to family members just before the attack, Allen himself marveled at the security posture at the hotel. “Like, I expected security cameras at every bend, bugged hotel rooms, armed agents every 10 feet, metal detectors out the wazoo,” he said according tothe letter obtained by the New York Post, the contents of which wereconfirmed by USA TODAY.
Many of the problems he saw at the Hilton, Magaw said, could have been addressed by a “high-ranking supervisor doing a walk-through 15 or 20 minutes or an hour before (the dinner) to see that things were planned the way they should be.”
The lack of such a thorough walk-through "is what happened in Pennsylvania as well,” Magaw said. “Otherwise they would have discovered that that roof wasn’t covered” by countersnipers.
Wackrow said that while there may have been shortcomings, the ultimate goal of protecting the president and others was achieved.
“It’s very easy to go, 'hey, this was a failure,' Wackrow said."But in what context? Multiple layers of defense actually worked.”
“Butler was a failure, catastrophically, across everything,” Wackrow said. “This was not.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Ex-Secret Service chief calls for outside probe of DC gala shooting
