Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump with his bloodied face is assisted by the Secret Service as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 13, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The United States obtained intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate former President Donald Trump in recent weeks, three officials briefed on the matter told NBC News on Tuesday.
That intelligence led the U.S. Secret Service to increase security around Trump, who is the Republican presidential nominee, the officials said.
The intelligence and boosted security occurred before Trump was targeted in an attempted assassination by 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
CNN first reported the news of the Iranian plot, which raises more questions about the Secret Service’s failure to prevent the shooting by Crooks from a nearby building’s rooftop.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson in a statement said that law enforcement authorities investigating the shooting by Crooks have “not identified ties between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or domestic.”
“As we have said many times, we have been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration,” Watson said.
“These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Qassem Soleimani. We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority,” she said.
Soleimani, who at the time was Iran’s most powerful general, was killed in January 2020 by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, when Trump was president.
Iran previously was known to be targeting other former top Trump administration officials because of Soleimani’s death, among than former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who continue to have security deals as a result of those plots.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting former presidents and major presidential candidates, has faced withering criticism for failing to stop Crooks from shooting at Trump and rally attendees. One man was killed, and two others were seriously injured in the shooting, which occurred two days before Trump was formally nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate at the GOP convention in Milwaukee.
The agency has said that securing the building was the responsibility of local police in Butler Township because it fell outside the security “perimeter” of the rally site, which was the Secret Service’s responsbility.
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