Did the Associated Press publish a video report confirming that the suspected shooter of President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' dinner had visited the Ukrainian embassy multiple times before the attempted attack? No, that's not true: An AP representative told Lead Stories that the video report using its logo had nothing to do with the news agency. Lead Stories found no credible coverage of the purported visits to the Ukrainian embassy in the U.S.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X by @GarbageHuman24 on June 8, 2026. It opened:
Surveillance footage shows the Trump would-be assassin Cole Allen visited the Ukrainian embassy numerous times before April 25th with his last visit being the day before, carrying a bag... this likely isn't the 'lone wolf' story we were told.
The post shared a video that began:
Newly obtained surveillance footage has raised questions about connections between Cole Allen, the man accused of attempting to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump during the 2026 White House correspondents' dinner, and Ukraine. Investigators have determined that Allen visited the embassy of Ukraine at least four times prior to the April 25 shooting.
This is what that clip with a visible AP logo looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @GarbageHuman24 on X.com.)
On May 5, 2026, Cole Tomas Allen was indicted (archived here) on four counts, including an attempt to assassinate the president during the April 25, 2026, White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
The AP covered the case extensively (archived here) but did not report the purported story about alleged ties between the suspect and Ukraine.
On June 10, 2026, AP's Media Relations Manager Nicole Meir (archived here) told Lead Stories via email:
The video in question is not an authentic AP report and was not published by The Associated Press.
Lead Stories searched the AP website and found no such report.
A search on Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed a single article (archived here) that didn't make the claim -- it didn't even mention the word "Ukraine":
(Image source: The Times.)
Searches across specialized websites publishing court materials, such as CourtListener (archived here) and Google Scholar's Case law (archived here), showed no legal records confirming the claim, either.
