WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence officials confirmed Wednesday that they briefed Donald Trump's campaign on Iranian threats against the Republican presidential nominee.
The agency acknowledged in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the briefing occurred but declined to say whether there is evidence of a new plot targeting Trump, or whether the briefing focused instead on previously reported threats from Iran.
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In a statement Tuesday, 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."
The Trump campaign declined to discuss further details of Tuesday’s briefing.
Iran has not been linked to attempts on Trump’s life at a rally in Pennsylvania in July and at his Florida golf course this month. In the first attempt, authorities shot and killed the gunman who shot Trump and arrested the suspect at the scene in the second.
But U.S. officials have long been concerned about Iran, which they see as a threat to both Trump and former Trump administration officials and have accused of trying to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
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.
Iranian hackers also 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.
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. Iran also opposes Trump's reelection, seeing him as the candidate more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran.
Trump’s administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
Speaking on CBS This Morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said authorities have been tracking Iran’s threats against “a number of senior officials” including Trump as well as people now serving in the Biden administration.
“This is something we’ve been tracking very intensely for a long time,” Blinken said.
In 2022, an Iranian operative was charged in a plot to murder former National Security Advisor John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed Soleimani.
The Secret Service did not respond to requests for information about new threats against Trump and whether they had recently beefed up security for the campaign in response. But the agency has already said publicly that since the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former president is receiving the highest levels of protection the agency can provide.
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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.