WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials briefed Donald Trump ‘s campaign this week on Iranian threats against the Republican presidential nominee, but the briefing centered on previously reported threats and not a new plot.
The Secret Service boosted Trump’s security protection in July following news of an Iranian threat on his life. Iranian hackers also stole information they retrieved from Trump’s campaign. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that officials have been tracking Iranian threats against a number of officials including Trump and some who serve in President Joe Biden ‘s administration.
The attention to Iranian threats comes at a sensitive moment in the campaign following two assassination attempts targeting Trump. There’s no evidence though connecting these events to Iran.
Here’s what we know:
Trump campaign requested intelligence briefing
Trump’s campaign said Tuesday that it had received a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Iranian threats targeting Trump. In a statement, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the meeting included information about “real and specific” threats to “assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States.”
Intelligence officials held the briefing at the request of the Trump campaign, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, added that the information presented to the campaign did not include any suggestion of a new threat against Trump and some of the information that was presented to the campaign was years old.
Trump’s campaign has sought to make Iran’s threats a political issue, suggesting Iran considers Democrat Kamala Harris weak on foreign policy. It has mischaracterized some details to falsely suggest Harris’s campaign sought to benefit when Iran hacked into his campaign.
During a speech Wednesday Trump called for a belligerent response to Iranian threats. “If I were the president I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person we’re going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens.”
Longtime concerns about Iran
Along with Russia and China, Iran has also mounted an extensive online influence operation designed to stoke discord and polarization ahead of the November election, intelligence officials have said.
It has especially targeted Trump, seeing him as the candidate more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Iranian hackers stole information from Trump’s campaign and sought, unsuccessfully, to interest news organizations and President Joe Biden’s campaign in the material. There’s no indication that any of the recipients responded.
But U.S. concerns about the threats Iran poses to the U.S. go well beyond this year’s election. Iranian leaders vowed revenge after the Trump administration ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
In July, authorities said they had received word of an Iranian threat on Trump’s life and boosted security for the candidate as a result. The following month a Pakistani man alleged to have links to Iran was charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil. Law enforcement did not name the targets of the alleged plot, but legal filings suggest Trump was a potential target.
In 2022 an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to murder former National Security Adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for Soleimani’s death.
On Wednesday, Blinken said authorities have been investigating Iran’s threats against “a number of senior officials” including Trump as well as people now serving in President Joe Biden’s administration.
“This is something we’ve been tracking very intensely for a long time,” Blinken said on CBS This Morning.
The National Security Council said in a statement sent to The AP that Iran’s threats against Trump and were prompted by Solemaini’s killing. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” the council said.
No connection to attempts on Trump’s life
In his speech Wednesday, Trump linked Iran to the recent assassination attempts — “they may or may not involve, or possibly do, Iran.” Authorities have made no such connection.
In the first attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, authorities shot and killed the gunman who shot Trump. Law enforcement officials have said the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, searched online for events of both Trump and Biden, and viewed the Trump rally as a “target of opportunity. ” The FBI has said it believes Crooks acted alone.
The suspect in the second assassination attempt, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was apprehended following a chase after the Secret Service spotted him lying in wait at Trump’s Florida golf course this month. Routh’s past social media posts don’t easily align with either party, but his views on Trump seemed to sour in recent years. The FBI said Routh wrote a letter detailing his plans to kill Trump.
The Secret Service declined to comment on Wednesday when asked whether they’ve taken actions recently in response to any new Iranian threats against Trump. But the agency has already said that since the July attempt, Trump is receiving the highest levels of protection it can provide.
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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana in Washington and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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