Fox Crew Presses Kash Patel on Whether WHCA Dinner Suspect Was Known to Feds Before Shooting: ‘Was There Chatter About Him?’

Fox & Friends co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Brian Kilmeade pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday on whether the White House Correspondents’ Dinner suspect was known to authorities before the attempted shooting.

Both Jones and Kilmeade were at the event when an armed man rushed past security and attempted to storm the venue.

Secret Service agents swiftly evacuated President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other senior officials as the situation unfolded near the Washington Hilton ballroom.

One officer was struck but shielded by a bulletproof vest, but the suspect was quickly apprehended and taken into custody.

The suspect, 31-year-old Cole Allen from California, left a manifesto claiming he wanted to target Trump and other senior officials. According to one senior official, cited by CBS News, investigators discovered anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on the suspect’s social media accounts, and determined he had previously attended a “No Kings” protest in his home state.

Patel appeared on Fox & Friends early Monday, when he gave an update on the FBI’s ongoing investigation, describing how agents had conducted interviews across the country and how he had deployed the bureau’s mobile command center.

Jones then began to press on what had been uncovered about the suspect’s online activity and whether he was “on the feds’ radar” before the incident.

“Can you go into the profile, I know you can’t talk about the investigation, but was he on the Feds’ radar before?” Jones asked. “Did you see the posting he was making? That he was trying to come to the hotel? And it is true that there was an alert put out with a description of him, but he wasn’t detected in the hotel?”

Patel replied: “Those are all things that the bureau and our investigation are looking at. We have what’s called a BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit — it’s been made famous from past historical investigations — and those folks have been working all weekend. I received a full briefing from our BAU unit. What that does is not necessarily provide direct evidence to be utilized in court, but it examines what we’ve collected so far to include e-mails, social media postings, witness interviews, interviews with family and friends and neighbors, so we can provide a complete picture of this individual’s intent when we make the presentment in court.”

“That’s what we’re going through right now while we are in the process of finalizing and will see that in court,” he added.

“So is any of that true, what he mentioned?” Kilmeade pushed.

Jones rounded again: “Because Kash, you are talking about the behavior analysis element of it, I’m not talking about that. I’m saying was there a profile put out? Was he known? Was there chatter about him before, not during the act, before it?”

The FBI director, however, refused to divulge: “Yeah, all those questions will be answered in the complaint, the criminal complaint that’s being presented, I just can’t get ahead of my partners at the Department of Justice, and especially can’t get ahead of the federal magistrate that it is being provided to.”

“But we have answered all those questions,” he promised.

Watch above via Fox News.

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