Forget 'staged shooting.' Looks like there was no shooting at all

Was there even a shooting? That's the rhetorical question some people ask when they already believe it was staged. It was fake, they say, a "false flag" intended to elicit sympathy for a Republican president who is facing a wipeout in the coming congressional elections.

But the salience of that conspiracy theory depends on one thing being incontrovertibly true – that there was an actual shooting. Everyone seems to presume there was one, even those who write stories about the conspiracy theories that arose from the incident. "First came the shooting. Then, the conspiracy theories," the Post said Monday. But did it really come first?

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You would expect questions to be settled by those who are investigating the incident. However, after the charging document was released in the government's case against Cole Allen, it's unclear whether any of the headlines about "the shooting" at the White House Correspondents Dinner – or about "the shooting suspect" – represent reality. Why? Because the affidavit does not say whether Allen fired a shot, only that a "loud gunshot" was heard.

I'll quote the document directly: "13. At approximately 8:40 pm, ALLEN approached a security checkpoint on the Terrace Level of the hotel leading to the location of the dinner. ALLEN approached and ran through the magnetometer holding a long gun. As he did so, US Secret Service personnel assigned to the checkpoint heard a loud gunshot. US Secret Service Officer VG was shot once in the chest; Officer VG was wearing a ballistic vest at the time. 14. Officer VG drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at ALLEN, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot. ALLEN was subsequently arrested."

That's it. As Allen was running through security, someone heard "a loud gunshot." I think Garrett Graff summarized the thinking of many people with reasonable suspicions about what really happened. "An agent or officer close to the checkpoint that Allen blows past — perhaps even the one onscreen in the video who turns and draws his weapon at the fast receding Allen — fires once, hits the other officer in the vest, who then 'returns' fire at Allen, firing five shots and missing them all." Put another way, agents of the government want to prosecute Cole Allen for a "shooting" that was committed by agents of the government.

Today, the Post provided more context raising more questions. It analyzed a higher quality version of the video the president shared on his social media site. In it, Allen is seen running through security armed with a shotgun. As he's running, "an officer reaches for his gun ... They raise their weapons nearly simultaneously, but the footage only makes clear that the officer fires [my italics]. The officer does not visibly react then — or at any point in the footage — in an obvious manner that indicates he has been shot. In the footage, four muzzle flashes can be seen from the officer’s handgun before he moves offscreen." The Post cited a forensics expert who concluded that the entire episode Saturday included a total of six shots.

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Was anyone shot? That, too, appears to be an open question. While the charging document says that a Secret Service officer was hit (he was wearing a bullet-proof vest), it does not include the charge of assaulting a federal officer. As Garrett Graff noted, that's something you "would expect to see in a case where, you know, someone fired a shotgun into the chest of a Secret Service officer." Today, however, prosecutors appear to have changed their minds. As Politico's Kyle Cheney noted, the "prosecutors' memo drops any reference to a USSS officer being hit by a bullet. It now says an officer observed Allen fire in the direction of the staircase toward the WHCD. That officer then fired at Allen five times but did not hit him."

OK, if the government wants us to accept the allegation that "an officer observed Allen fire in the direction of the staircase," then prosecutors are prepared to show us evidence of the discharge, right? That might not be the case, however. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Monday: "When you fire a bullet, the bullet ends up somewhere. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t." That's unbelievable, as in no one should believe it. The discharge happened indoors. Whether Allen fired a slug or buckshot, they should be able to find it. Moreover, if it was buckshot, the evidence should be, well, evident. Each cartridge in a 12 gauge shotgun contains eight or nine balls. All they need is one to prove he fired a shot.

Does this mean the conspiracy theory was wrong? Yes, in a narrow sense. This was not a "staged shooting." Barring the presentation of damning evidence, it looks like there was no shooting at all (anyway not a criminal one). But the conspiracy theorists are right in a broader sense. The administration's response to a would-be assassin – and all acts of political violence – is very stagy, almost theatrical, as if made to look convincing to a TV audience. There is a very real unreality to it all, by which I mean a detachment from reality, especially coming from the president himself. "Everybody hit the floor. How worried were you that there were gonna be injuries?" he was asked afterward. "I wasn't worried," he said. "I understand life. We live in a crazy world." That, my friend, is the thinking of a crazed man.

The sheer volume of lies coming out of this administration over the last year is why conspiracy theories have reached bipartisan consensus. No one knows what to believe. The people who are supposed to take the threat of political violence seriously are doing no such thing. Instead, they politically exploit the violence to smash enemies and achieve goals (like a ballroom) that are pointless to a broader public. How many times has Donald Trump told us the Iran War is coming to an end? How many times has he told us that tariffs are going to make the country rich? How many times has he said he's making America great again?

The "shooting" wasn't staged, because in all likelihood, there wasn't a shooting at all. (I do not mean to suggest Allen is innocent, only that the charges against him don't seem accurate. Threatening to murder government officials is, in and of itself, a crime punishable by law.)

But as long as the president is a phony, Americans won't stop believing it's fake.

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