WASHINGTON, US
The United States Secret
Service boosted security around former President Donald
Trump after picking up intelligence in recent weeks of an Iranian plot
to assassinate him, people familiar with the matter said, adding that the
threat was separate from the attempt on his life last weekend.A Secret Service agent stands behind former President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump
There’s no indication of any
link between the Iranian plot and Thomas
Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old man accused of shooting at and wounding
Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Sniper teams killed Crooks
seconds after he opened fire.
The Iranian threat appeared to
be linked to a broader pattern of threats against former Trump administration
officials that stemmed from the U.S. killing of Qassem
Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in January 2020,
the Biden administration said. Soleimani was assassinated in
a drone strike ordered by Trump.
“We have been tracking Iranian
threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to
the last administration,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson
said in a statement Tuesday. “These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek
revenge” for killing Soleimani, she said.
Before Saturday’s incident,
the White House contacted the Secret Service about the recent Iranian threat,
which then shared that information with the Trump campaign, according to one of
the people. The Secret Service subsequently increased resources and assets for
Trump’s protection, the person said.
But a person familiar with the
Trump campaign’s conversations with the Secret Service said the agency’s
leaders informed campaign officials in passing of a general increase in threats
against the former president without making them aware of any specific threats
tied to Iranian individuals or groups.
Iran said in a social media
posting on X that the reports of its involvement in a plot against Trump are
baseless.
CNN, which earlier reported the Iranian plot, said that the intelligence on the plan came from a human source. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
The Secret Service and its
chief, Kimberly Cheatle, have come under intense
scrutiny since Trump’s extremely close call in Pennsylvania over the
weekend. Cheatle said in an interview Monday on ABC News that the agency’s
failure was “unacceptable” but that she doesn’t plan to resign. President Joe
Biden called for an independent review of the shooting, which killed one
person.
The U.S. has maintained
security details for several one-time Trump administration officials, including
former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and John Bolton, who served as
national security adviser. In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in connection with an alleged plot to
assassinate Bolton.
That same year, National
Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned that Iran was threatening “to carry out
terror operations inside the United States and elsewhere around the world.” He
said Iran would face “severe consequences” if anyone was attacked.
“The investigation of
Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Trump is active and
ongoing,” the NSC’s Watson said in the statement. “At this time, law
enforcement has reported that their investigation has not identified ties
between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or
domestic.”
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