2024-07-17 10:08:21
There is no indication that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the young man who attempted to assassinate the former president on Saturday, was involved in the plot, the sources said.
The existence of an intelligence threat from a hostile foreign intelligence agency — and Trump’s heightened security — are raising new questions about security gaps at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday and how a 20-year-old man managed to get onto a nearby rooftop and fire the shots that injured the former president.
A US national security official said the Secret Service and Trump’s campaign were informed of the threat before Saturday’s rally.
“The Secret Service became aware of the increased threat from this stream of threats,” the official told CNN. – The US National Security Council has been in direct contact with the Secret Service at a higher level to make sure they are continuing to follow up on the latest reports. The Secret Service shared this information <...> and the Trump campaign has been briefed on the growing threat. In response to the heightened threat, the Secret Service has increased resources and measures to protect former President Trump. All this happened before Saturday.”
The Trump campaign did not say whether it had been notified of the Iranian threat. “We do not comment on President Trump’s security personnel. All questions should be directed to the United States Secret Service,” the campaign said in a statement.
Secret Service officials have repeatedly warned the Trump campaign against holding outdoor rallies, which pose a greater risk than events to which the agency can better control access, people briefed on the matter said. The warnings were more general in nature, the sources said.
“The Secret Service and other agencies are constantly receiving new information about potential threats and are taking steps to adjust resources as needed,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Tuesday. “We can’t comment on any specific threat stream, but we want to say that the Secret Service takes threats seriously and is responding accordingly.”
At one point during this election cycle, the campaign stopped holding spontaneous informal events where guests were not pre-vetted by the Secret Service for security reasons, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is investigating Saturday’s shooting, has not commented on the Iranian conspiracy.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson, for her part, said there is currently no known connection between the shooter TMCrooks and other individuals.
“The investigation into Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Trump is active and ongoing. At this time, law enforcement agencies have reported that their investigation has not identified any connections between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, either overseas or domestically,” Watson said.
The Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations has denied that Iran is plotting to kill Trump.
“These allegations are baseless and malicious. From the point of view of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in court for ordering the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal route to bring him to justice,” the mission’s spokesman told CNN, referring to Q. Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who fled the country in 2020. was killed in a US airstrike at Baghdad International Airport in January.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria pressed Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, on Iran’s alleged assassination plot, asking in an interview whether the plot was revenge for the assassination of Q. Soleimani, which took place during the Trump administration.
“I have made it clear to you that we will use legal and judicial procedures and systems at the domestic and international level to prosecute the perpetrators and military advisers of the assassination of General Q. Soleimani,” ABKani said.
Asked if that meant no violent means would be used, he said: “We will only use Iranian and international legal and judicial procedures.”
“We’ve done it up until now, and it’s our right, and of course we’ll continue to do it,” he continued. – And the Americans openly said that they killed a high-ranking Iranian military commander. So it is our natural right to pursue this matter and those who are accused in this case should be tried in a fair court.”
Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance will hold their first official campaign rally together Saturday at an indoor arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the campaign announced Tuesday.
A wave of threats from Iran’s state-backed media Iran has repeatedly promised to take revenge for the US military’s killing of Q. Soleimani. And former high-ranking officials of the Trump administration, who worked in the field of national security, have been under strict protection since leaving the government.
in 2022 in August, the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for an alleged attempt to organize the assassination of John Bolton, who worked as Trump’s national security adviser. U.S. prosecutors said the plot against Mr. Bolton was “probably revenge” for the killing of Q. Soleimani.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also a target of the Iranian assassination plot, according to a federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation and a source close to Pompeo.
Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, like Pompeo and other former Trump officials, had a U.S. government security guard because of threats from Iran, but they were dropped last summer, according to sources familiar with the matter. O’Brien now pays for his own private security team, sources said. Lawmakers were not given a specific reason for the decision, leading to frustration. O’Brien himself did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bolton still has his own Secret Service security team.
Law enforcement officials have been worried for months about the ongoing threat that Iran might try to assassinate former Trump officials and the former president himself, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. But the latest intelligence suggests that threat has grown significantly, sources told CNN.
The warnings of such operational planning coincided with a notable increase in reports from Iranian accounts and state-backed media mentioning Trump online, raising security concerns among US officials, one of the sources told CNN.
Prepared by CNN.
2024-07-17 10:08:21