Blanche says 'the system worked' to protect Trump from White House correspondents' dinner shooting
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that "the system worked" and kept President Donald Trump and other leaders safe from a shooting outside of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday night that they were attending.
"The system worked; law enforcement and the Secret Service protected all of us. The man barely got past the perimeter. And so when you have a perimeter designed to keep people safe, like President Trump, and it works -- that's something that should be applauded," Blanche told "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos when asked about the fact that the president and many members of the presidential line of succession were there.
"Secondly, as President Trump said, we are not going to stop doing what we're doing. We're not going to stop living; we're not going to stop being out there," Blanche added. "President Trump is going to continue communicating with the American people in public, and the fact that the vice president and other leadership were there last night in one room, is why we had such a robust security [operation] surrounding the place, inside the place, and it's why we are all safe."
Blanche spoke to Stephanopoulos the morning after a shooting incident outside the dinner.
The incident took place near the main magnetometer screening area at the event, according to the Secret Service. A suspect, whom law enforcement sources identified to ABC News as Cole Allen of Torrance, California, is in custody, officials said.
Blanche said the suspect was likely acting alone, although investigations are ongoing, and that "we believe that he traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago and then Chicago to Washington, D.C."
Asked by Stephanopoulos how the suspect allegedly got a firearm into the hotel, Blanche replied, "It's a good question. And listen, I'm not sure. It appears that he checked in on the 24th [of April] to the hotel, and we're still looking at video surveillance and footage of where he walked and how he got in and how those firearms got in, but at the end of the day, I expect we'll have a lot more about that in the coming days."
As for the nature of charges the suspect could be charged with, Blanche said the suspect will likely be charged on Monday in federal court.
"We expect that he, the suspect, will be charged tomorrow morning in federal court with two counts: assault of a federal officer and use of a firearm during a crime of violence. We're going to continue to investigate, and it'll just be a complaint tomorrow, and indictment will be coming in the coming days or weeks, and go from there."
Stephanopoulos asked Blanche about the current threat environment and what needs to be done to keep Americans safe, given how Trump has been targeted two times and members of Congress and administration officials alike have faced an increased number of threats in recent years.
Blanche told Stephanopoulos that threats against leadership are not new, but added, "There is something unique about the threats against President Trump and his Cabinet that is disgusting, and it shouldn't be happening. On the other hand, that's why we have great law enforcement. That's why we have DHS and our intelligence community and the FBI and all of our other partners that are working every day to stop those threats before they happen."
Saying that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI also foil threats from "domestic terrorists or Iran or other nation states that are threatening us," Blanche continued, "It's something that has kept all of us busy for a long time, and we are at at a crunch time right now with security and keeping all of us safe, and and we will continue to do that, and to work hard and identify threats and stop them."
