US authorities have intensified security measures around former President Donald Trump after receiving intelligence reports of an Iranian plot to assassinate him, a CNN report said, although no links have been established between the plot and a recent shooting at a Trump rally.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was killed in January 2020 on orders from then-President Trump.
CNN reported on Tuesday that recent intelligence from a human source reveals Iran was planning to assassinate Trump, leading to enhanced security measures by the Secret Service.
Despite these precautions, a shooting incident occurred at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, accessed a nearby rooftop and fired shots, injuring the former president. Authorities have told CNN that there is no known connection between Crooks and the Iranian plot.
Iran’s permanent mission to the UN immediately denied CNN's report, saying, “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious."
A US national security official confirmed that the Secret Service and the Trump campaign were informed of the Iranian threat prior to the rally. "Secret Service learned of the increased threat from this threat stream," the official told CNN. "The National Security Council directly contacted USSS at a senior level to be absolutely sure they continued to track the latest reporting."
Later on Tuesday, unnamed US officials told Politico that "there may be more attempts on Trump’s life in the coming weeks."
"The US intelligence community has received an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that Iran is actively working on plots to kill former President Donald Trump, potentially in the lead up to the election in November," the Politico report said.
Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo was also among the targets of the Iranian assassination plot, CNN reported citing a federal law enforcement source and a source close to Pompeo.
"Tehran's terror threat against Trump is like a pilot-light: always on in the background and can be scaled up in intensity at a time of their own choosing," Behnam Ben Taleblu, a Senior Fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Iran International.
“Domestic divisions or not, Iranian officials continue to believe that blood will only wash away blood. That's why they have not shied away from officially stating that the policy of the regime remains the killing of Trump-era national security officials whom they believe were involved in the killing of Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020," he said.
In August 2022, the US Justice Department charged an IRGC member for allegedly planning to assassinate John Bolton, the Trump administration’s national security adviser, in retaliation for Soleimani’s assassination. Bolton has been enjoying Secret Service detail since then.
Robert O’Brien, another national security adviser in the Trump administration, previously had a US government security detail due to threats from Iran, similar to Pompeo and other former Trump officials. However, that protection was withdrawn last summer, sources revealed to CNN. O’Brien is now funding his own private security, according to sources.
Iran's assassination threat against the two former national security advisers has been countered by a $12m-a-year Secret Service operation, official papers showed in February.
“Make no mistake, lapses in security can and will permit Iran-backed plots to succeed," Ben Taleblu told Iran International. "While fortunately many have been discovered or thwarted over the years, the rise in Iran-backed terror and kidnapping attempts usings proxies and trans-national criminal syndicates means that Tehran believes quantity has a quality of its own and is waiting for a mistake.”
US law enforcement also protects Iranian dissidents and journalists in America due to credible threats from Iran.