The attempts on President Trump’s life just keeping piling up and I’d be lying to you if I told you I’m not worried about more attacks or that one of them may just succeed someday. What that will mean for our country is hard to say, but it won’t be good: We can’t be known as a nation that allows its political leaders to be assassinated for what amount to differences in opinion over policy and ideology.
Having said that, new details about the latest attempt have just been revealed by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.
On Sunday’s CNN news program “State of the Union,” Pirro confirmed that a round recovered from a Secret Service agent’s protective vest during an exchange of gunfire with alleged would-be presidential assassin Cole Allen originated from the shotgun Allen used in the attack.
.@USAttyPirro on Cole Allen: "It is definitively his bullet he hit at that Secret Service agent. He had every intention to kill him, and anyone who got in his way, on his way to killing the President of the United States. This was a premeditated, violent act, calculated to take… pic.twitter.com/bCp3kiXAvD
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.@USAttyPirro on Cole Allen: “It is definitively his bullet he hit at that Secret Service agent. He had every intention to kill him, and anyone who got in his way, on his way to killing the President of the United States. This was a premeditated, violent act, calculated to take down the president, and anyone who was in the line of fire.”
Here’s the exchange between host Jake Tapper and Pirro:
Pirro: Well, we have been able to determine which gun it was. First of all, there is video of the defendant shooting at the Secret Service agent. There is also the agent who will tell you himself that he was shot and then he returned the fire. But more importantly, Jake, is that fact that we can now establish a pellet from a buckshot that came from the defendant’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun was intertwined with the fiber of the vest of the Secret Service officer.
Tapper: So it’s definitively his bullet.
Pirro: It is definitely his bullet he hit at that Secret Service agent. He had every intention to kill him and anyone who got in his way on his way to killing the President of the United States. This was a premeditated, violent act calculated to take down the president and anyone who was in the line of fire. And you and I were both in that combat zone, and we know what it was like. It was a very dangerous situation. And, but for law enforcement and their quick reaction, this thing could have been much worse.
It seems the evidence – and the details behind this attack – are continuing to mount.
The Mossberg shotgun in question—specifically the one found in Cole Allen’s possession—reportedly belongs to the company’s lower-priced “Maverick” line. It would have been a terrifyingly effective weapon if Allen had managed to breach the perimeter and gain access to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Although both Tapper and Pirro incorrectly refer to the recovered projectile as a “bullet,” it is actually not a bullet.
A shotgun’s buckshot load consists of several round lead pellets rather than a single conical bullet. While we don’t know the exact load of the recovered shotgun, a standard 12-gauge load typically contains 00 buckshot, which consists of nine round lead pellets measuring about .32 caliber each. Each shot releases nine .32 caliber lead balls downrange, and at the short distances typical of that venue, the pellets would have remained closely grouped.
This choice of weapon was not random for Cole Allen; he gave considerable thought to selecting his primary firearm.
