A gunman walked down 10 flights of an unguarded hotel stairwell at the Washington Hilton and nearly killed the President.
That was three weeks ago – and the Secret Service director went on Fox News and called the setup "perfect."
Now a senator is asking the question Washington doesn't want to answer.
Blackburn Demands Secret Service Audit After Washington Hilton Shooting
Sen. Marsha Blackburn sent Secret Service Director Sean Curran a letter this week that used four words the agency has spent two years avoiding: "Root out the rot."
Cole Tomas Allen booked a room at the Washington Hilton nearly three weeks before the White House Correspondents' Dinner, packed a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38 caliber pistol into a bag, and walked down 10 flights of unmonitored stairs to the security checkpoint.
He sprinted through the magnetometer firing.
A uniformed Secret Service officer took buckshot to the chest – stopped only by his ballistic vest.
Allen was tackled 45 yards from the ballroom stairs, where Trump, Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, and Kash Patel were all seated.
Blackburn's question to Curran was blunt: why was the stairwell not locked?
"Why was the stairwell not locked off? How was anybody who was not a guest at that dinner able to get into that area of the hotel?" she said on Newsmax's National Report.
She also wanted to know why agents weren't watching surveillance footage before setting up the magnetometers.
"Why were they not viewing surveillance video to see who was in that area before the Secret Service took control?" she said.
Curran had no good answer – because there isn't one.
Sean Curran Called Secret Service Security Perfect After the Third Trump Assassination Attempt
This wasn't bad luck.
Congress warned the Secret Service about exactly these kinds of gaps in 2015 – communication failures, inadequate advance planning, insufficient venue security.
Nothing changed.
Then came Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.
Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto a rooftop within clear sight of the rally stage with a rangefinder and waited – undetected – for 25 minutes after being reported to Secret Service as suspicious.
The GAO's year-long investigation found that high-level Secret Service officials had received classified intelligence about a specific threat to Trump's life ten days before Butler – and never passed it down the chain.
Sen. Rand Paul's final report called Butler "not just a tragedy – it was a scandal."
Six agents were suspended – 10 to 42 days without pay – and returned to duty.
Nobody was fired.
Then came September 2024 at Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach.
Now the Washington Hilton.
Three attempts. The same broken agency each time.
Blackburn is also putting on paper what everyone already suspects: agents inside the Secret Service are bringing their politics to work.
"If we have people that are bringing their political views to work, if we have people that are incomplete or are not properly trained, then we need to deal with that," she told Newsmax.
The same agency that let a gunman walk undetected to the president's doorstep is the agency that – under Biden's Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle – denied at least ten of Trump's own protective detail requests for additional security resources before Butler.
The detail asked ten times. Cheatle's agency said no each time. Then a bullet grazed Trump's ear.
Her May 8 letter to Curran demanded a full audit of every agent on the payroll – no exceptions, no 10-day suspensions and back to duty.
Every. Single. Employee.
The most damning moment in all of this didn't come from a senator.
It came from Curran himself.
One week after Cole Allen sprinted through a security checkpoint with a loaded shotgun, Curran went on Fox News and said the security at the Correspondents' Dinner was "set-up perfectly."
Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz – who ran multiple congressional investigations into the Secret Service – heard that and had one response.
"Perfect? Are you kidding me?" he told RealClearPolitics. "What if there were 12 guys with guns that decided to rush that point?"
Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and Fox News host, said the same thing differently: what worries him isn't the one guy who charges a checkpoint – it's what happens next time, with more of them.
Blackburn knows what stonewalling from Curran looks like.
Trump has the World Cup kicking off June 11 and America 250 events running all summer.
The same Secret Service that called a near-assassination "perfect" is running security for all of it.
Curran can ignore Blackburn's letter and call the next incident a lone wolf. He can hand out another round of 10-day suspensions, hold a press conference, and move on.
Or the next funeral is on him.
Sources:
- Solange Reyner, "Sen. Blackburn to Newsmax: Secret Service Must Be 'Cleaned Up,'" Newsmax, May 13, 2026.
- Susan Crabtree, "Marsha Blackburn to Secret Service: 'Root Out the Rot,'" RealClearPolitics, May 8, 2026.
- "Suspect in White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Charged with Attempt to Assassinate the President," U.S. Department of Justice, April 28, 2026.
- "Grassley Report Concludes Secret Service Failure to Share Threat Information Allowed for Preventable Tragedy in Butler," U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, July 12, 2025.
- "Chairman Rand Paul Releases Final Report Detailing Secret Service Failures," U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, July 14, 2025.
- "Congress Warned the Secret Service to Reform in 2015 — a Decade Later, the Same Failures Persist," Conservative Institute, May 10, 2026.
