The United States received intelligence from a human source in recent weeks regarding an Iranian plan to assassinate former president Donald Trump, CNN reported on Tuesday, and the Secret Service had been instructed to step up his security due to the threat.
There was no indication that Thomas Matthew Crooks, who tried to assassinate Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, was connected to the plot, the report said.
The US Secret Service and the Trump campaign were made aware of the plot before Saturday’s rally, a CNN reporter posted on X, citing a US national security official.
Trump’s campaign has been warned several times that it would be better off holding rallies indoors, as there are greater risks posed by hosting them out in the open, the outlet stated, but until recently, they had been general warnings.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told CNN that the agency had recently “added protective resources and capabilities to the former president’s security detail.”
The agency has come under scrutiny in recent days after the suspected gunman at Saturday’s rally gained access to a roof unimpeded and fired directly at Trump, grazing his ear, killing a rallygoer and critically wounding two other attendees.
While law enforcement officials had long been concerned about the possibility of Iranian plans to harm the former president, recent intelligence indicated an increased threat, CNN reported, citing sources with knowledge on the matter.
According to the sources, there had been a significant uptick in mentions of Trump across Iranian state media and online accounts, which raised concerns among US officials.
The alleged assassination plot would be the latest development in what US officials had previously described as ongoing efforts by Iran to kill the Trump-era officials behind a 2020 US airstrike that killed the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani.
Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations denied the report that it had planned to target Trump, calling it “unsubstantiated and malicious,” but said that he was “a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law,” for the killing of Soleimani.
The statement added that Iran had chosen to pursue “the legal path to bring him to justice.”
In June 2023, the US announced that it was imposing sanctions on an IRGC official who it said took part in wide-ranging plots to kill former national security adviser John Bolton and other US officials around the world.
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo was also said by sources close to him to have been the target of “serious and credible” Iranian threats.
Tehran dismissed allegations that it planned to kill Bolton as “fiction,” and warned the US against targeting Iranian citizens “by resorting to ridiculous accusations.”