Ryan Lucas

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch says preliminary information indicates the suspect was targeting members of the Trump administration.

Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.

Look, this incident happened late Saturday night, so it is still very early in this investigation.

But law enforcement here in Washington, D.C.

and in Southern California have been hard at work trying to collect evidence, put the pieces together.

Much of what we know at this point comes from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch, who made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows.

Blanche didn't identify the suspect, but as you said, NPR has confirmed the individual in custody is 31-year-old Cole Allen from Torrance, California.

Now, Allen has not been cooperating with investigators.

That's according to Blanche.

But Blanche says authorities have been interviewing witnesses, people who know the suspect, and investigators also have executed search warrants at locations associated with them, and they've done the same thing on his electronic devices.

And have they found anything so far?

Well, Blanche says preliminary information indicates that Allen traveled by train from Los Angeles to Chicago.

And then from there on to Washington, D.C., he had a room at the Hilton Hotel where the correspondence dinner was taking place.

He also had a shotgun, a handgun and knives on him when he tried to storm the ballroom.

Blanche also said this on NBC's Meet the Press.

And that, of course, raises the all-important question of motive.

Blanche says officials are still investigating, digging in on that to try to get an answer to the motive question asked.

But again, we're just 36 hours or so into this investigation, so it is early.

A White House official told NPR that Allen's brother got in touch with law enforcement not long before the incident on Saturday, just minutes before it happened, in fact, and allegedly told them about a piece of writing that Allen had written and sent to family members.

The official also said that Allen's sister had told law enforcement that Allen referenced a plan to, quote unquote, do something to fix the issues with today's world.