According to national security officials, the US received intelligence from a human source about a plot by Iran to assassinate former US President Donald Trump just weeks before the assassination attempt on him on Saturday. This led to increased security measures for Trump.
However, officials said there was no known connection between this Iranian plot and the 20-year-old man who attempted to assassinate Trump on Saturday.
US intelligence services and the Trump campaign were informed of the Iranian threat, and increased security as a result, a US national security official confirmed.
Trump and his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have faced threats from Tehran since the 2020 drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force in Iraq.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said it and other agencies were “constantly receiving new potential threat information and taking action to adjust resources as needed.” “We cannot comment on any specific threat stream except to say the Secret Service takes threats seriously and responds accordingly,” he said.
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrianne Watson said U.S. security officials had been “tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years.”
The Iranian mission to the United Nations dismissed the report as “baseless and malicious”, and said Trump “is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law.”
Former President Donald Trump made his first public appearance at the Republican National Convention on Monday (local time) after surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday.
Trump, wearing a white bandage on his right ear, waved to supporters and received a standing ovation from the audience. He made no remarks during the convention and stood with his newly announced running mate, Senator J.D. Vance.
On Saturday, Trump was on stage at an election rally when gunfire rang out and Secret Service agents rushed onto the stage. Hours after the shooting, Trump said that the bullet hit the upper part of his right ear. One person attending the rally died in the shooting, while two others were seriously injured.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has identified the attacker as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The case is still under investigation.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
