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Authorities Release Video of Gunman in White House Correspondents’ Dinner Attack

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Authorities Release Video of Gunman in White House Correspondents’ Dinner Attack

The F.B.I. and prosecutors shared on Thursday new footage of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Trump during the White House correspondents’ dinner at the Washington Hilton last weekend, leading up to when shots were fired.

The video contains more than five minutes of edited and annotated surveillance footage that is sped up and slowed down in parts. It was shared on social media by the F.B.I. and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

In her post on Thursday, Ms. Pirro asserted that the video resolved uncertainty about whose gunfire had struck a Secret Service officer, who was protected by his bulletproof vest. The video, she wrote, showed that the man charged in the case, Cole Tomas Allen, had shot the Secret Service officer, and that there was “no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.”

President Trump shared similar footage on Saturday, showing the assailant running through a magnetometer before law enforcement officers drew their guns. He was brought down and disarmed at the top of a staircase leading down to the floor where the dinner was being held, and officials said they recovered a shotgun, a handgun and knives from him.

Law enforcement and administration officials had previously stopped short of definitively saying whose gunfire had struck the officer’s vest, and the charges lodged against Mr. Allen on Monday, including attempted assassination, did not include shooting a federal officer, only with firing a weapon. In a court filing on Wednesday, prosecutors said they believed that the Mr. Allen fired his shotgun down the staircase.

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Most of the newly released video is focused on other elements of Mr. Allen’s actions. It opens with footage the authorities have time-stamped as occurring on April 24, the day before the episode, and shows him walking through the hotel corridor and entering the gym.

In the segment showing Mr. Allen running through the magnetometer, officers appear to be breaking down the security station. He raises the shotgun as he races past them and aims it at security officers. The video has no sound, and it is unclear whether he discharges a shot.

The video then replays the footage at a slower speed, pausing and placing a circle around Mr. Allen as he runs through the magnetometer, then pausing and placing circles around officers’ guns as they appear to fire them.

A frame-by-frame analysis suggests Mr. Allen may have fired his 12-gauge shotgun during that confrontation. The clue is in the dust in the ceiling lights unsettled by the gunfire. In the frame after Mr. Allen aims at the security officers, the video shows that dust resting in two ceiling lights has been disturbed and is drifting downward. It is possible that this was caused by a muzzle blast from Mr. Allen’s shotgun. It is not until the next frame in the video — after the dust has been unsettled — that a Secret Service agent returns fire.

Public defenders for Mr. Allen argued in a court filing that there had been contradictions in the description of the shots fired, and that the video evidence did not show a muzzle flash from his shotgun.

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Prosecutors have countered that the evidence showed Mr. Allen fired the shotgun at least once as he ran past the magnetometers and that one spent shell was found in the recovered weapon.

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Video: Trump Settled a Case With Himself. Was That Legal?

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Video: Trump Settled a Case With Himself. Was That Legal?

new video loaded: Trump Settled a Case With Himself. Was That Legal?

The Trump administration this week created a $1.8 billion fund to dole out taxpayer dollars to the president’s political allies, and declared that Mr. Trump is immunized from tax audits. Our chief legal affairs correspondent, Adam Liptak, explains how these legally questionable moves test the Constitution’s limits on the president’s power.

By Adam Liptak, Paul Abowd, Nikolay Nikolov, Rafaela Balster, Jon Miller and Whitney Shefte

May 21, 2026

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Rep. Tom Kean Jr. says he expects to return to Congress ‘in the next couple of weeks’ after missing 100 votes

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Rep. Tom Kean Jr. says he expects to return to Congress ‘in the next couple of weeks’ after missing 100 votes

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Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., said Thursday that he expects to return to Congress “in the next couple of weeks” after missing 100 consecutive House votes during an extended absence tied to what his office has described only as a “personal health matter.”

“My doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery,” Kean, 57, told the New Jersey Globe in his first public comments since stepping away from Capitol Hill in March.

“I understand the need for public transparency, and I appreciate the support of my constituents,” he added. “I anticipate that in the next couple of weeks, I’ll return to voting and to the campaign trail.”

Kean last voted on March 5 and has missed every House roll call vote since then, according to GovTrack. His absence has drawn heightened attention because Republicans hold a slim majority in the House and because Kean represents one of the country’s most competitive congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

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TOM KEAN JR’S PROLONGED ABSENCE PUTS PRESSURE ON HOUSE REPUBLICANS’ RAZOR-THIN MAJORITY

Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., is running for a third House term in 2026 after fending off Democratic challengers in prior election cycles. (Getty Images)

His office has repeatedly declined to disclose details about the illness, saying only that the congressman is focused on recovery and expected to return “soon.” Fox News Digital reached out to a representative for Kean for additional comment.

Last week, Kean’s father, former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean Sr., told NJ.com that his son was recovering from a “serious illness.”

“You can’t say definitely, but their best guess is now he’ll be out in two or three weeks,” Kean Sr. said, referring to doctors treating his son. “Any time you’ve been through a serious illness, you can’t be 100% the day you get back. You’re gonna be able to do things, but gradually ramping up.”

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COMPLEX PARTIAL SEIZURE RULED AS CAUSE OF PAUSING EPISODE DURING HOUSE FLOOR SPEECH, DEM CONGRESSMAN SAYS

Tom Kean Jr., GOP candidate for New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, speaks at his election night party in Basking Ridge, N.J., on Nov. 8, 2022. (Stefan Jeremiah/AP)

Kean Sr. also said doctors expect his son to make a full recovery but declined to discuss the diagnosis.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters this week that he had spoken with Kean recently but was unaware of details surrounding the congressman’s condition.

“We’re expecting him back here soon. He’s had a medical issue,” Johnson said Wednesday. “I don’t even know the details.”

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JOHNSON WARNS HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO ‘STAY HEALTHY’ AS GOP MAJORITY SHRINKS TO THE EDGE

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill while House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., listens. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)

The absence has become a growing political issue in New Jersey as Democrats target Kean’s swing district. Kean is running unopposed in the Republican primary on June 2, while several Democrats are competing for their party’s nomination.

Earlier this month, a top Kean aide told The New York Times, “There’s no cameras where Tom is.”

Kean consultant Harrison Neely said this week the congressman remains committed to seeking reelection.

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“What I can tell you is that the congressman is dealing with a personal health matter. He is focused on his recovery,” Neely told the New York Post.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Pack contributed to this report.

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Influencer files complaint against Steyer campaign, alleging violations

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Influencer files complaint against Steyer campaign, alleging violations

A political influencer has filed a complaint against Tom Steyer’s campaign for governor, saying the committee failed to notify her of disclosure requirements, as required by law, when she was paid to meet with Steyer in March and later produced social media content from the meeting.

What’s more, she said the Steyer campaign falsely accused her of posting paid content in support of Steyer’s chief Democratic rival, Xavier Becerra, and failing to disclose it in a complaint filed by the billionaire’s campaign this week.

Maggie Reed, who regularly posts satirical takes on politics to roughly half a million followers on Instagram and TiKTok under the username mermaidmamamaggie, said she was actually paid by Steyer’s campaign and signed an agreement that barred her from disclosing the payment.

She posted, and later deleted, a video from her meeting with Steyer in March.

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“In plain terms: the Committee paid for political content, structured it to look like an ordinary creator’s organic opinion, and used a non-disclosure agreement to keep the public from learning the truth,” says the complaint, filed Thursday with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

Steyer’s campaign disclosed in a campaign filing that it had paid the agency that represents Reed $5,000 for digital advertising, but didn’t indicate that the payment was connected to Reed’s meeting with Steyer or her production of content.

The Steyer campaign said that while it did pay to meet with Reed, it left the decision of whether to create content entirely up to her.

Since then, Reed has produced several videos expressing support for Becerra, the former California congressman and U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, but she said that she was not paid to produce those videos and that they reflected her genuine support for Becerra’s campaign.

Becerra has been the top Democrat in recent polling in the race, maintaining a narrow edge over Steyer and a firm grip on one of the top two spots in the June 2 primary that would send him to the general election in November.

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Reed’s complaint is the latest volley in a back and forth involving the use of paid influencers in the gubernatorial race.

Two influencers who support Becerra — but were not paid by his campaign — filed a complaint last week saying that a number of influencers had created paid content in support of Steyer but failed to disclose so in their posts.

Steyer’s campaign then filed a complaint earlier this week in which it leveled accusations against Reed and another influencer named Jay Gonzalez, who is now a paid staffer on the Becerra campaign. The complaint alleges that Gonzalez made several pro-Becerra posts after joining the campaign and belatedly amended them to include disclosure that they were sponsored.

The Becerra campaign has maintained that it does not otherwise pay influencers to produce content on its behalf.

Steyer’s complaint included screenshots of an email sent to Reed’s talent agency by a gubernatorial campaign gauging her interest in producing paid content.

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While the screenshots produced in Steyer’s complaint did not disclose who had sent the inquiry, Reed said in her complaint that the request had come from a staffer for the gubernatorial campaign of former Los Angeles Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.

Disclosure of paid political content by social media creators is required in California thanks to a law passed in 2023.

Influencers themselves are required to disclose that a post they created was sponsored, but campaigns are required to notify them of the requirement.

Violation of the law doesn’t trigger civil, criminal or administrative penalties, but the Fair Political Practices Commission has the right to take violators to court and request that a judge force compliance with the law.

The agreement Reed signed with Steyer’s campaign, which was attached to her complaint, indicated that she needed to follow all applicable state, federal and local laws, but made no specific mention of her requirement to disclose that content she produced was sponsored.

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The agreement did specify that Steyer’s campaign might need to disclose the payment.

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