WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was briefed on Tuesday (Sep 24) by US intelligence officials on alleged threats from Iran to assassinate him, Trump’s campaign said.
“President Trump was briefed earlier today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilise and sow chaos in the United States,” the campaign said in a statement.
The campaign said that intelligence officials have identified that Iranian threats have “heightened in the past few months” and US government officials were working to protect Trump and ensure the elections were not impacted.
Iran has previously denied US claims of interfering in American affairs. Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York and the ODNI did not immediately respond to requests for comment late on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate an American politician in retaliation for the 2020 killing by the US of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
The defendant named Trump as a potential target but had not conceived the scheme as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Federal authorities are separately probing an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September and a Jul 13 shooting of the Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Pennsylvania. There has been no indication of Iranian involvement in either of those.
US government agencies said last week that Iranian hackers sent emails containing stolen material from the Republican former president’s campaign to people involved in Democratic President Joe Biden’s then re-election campaign, part of an alleged broader effort by Tehran to influence the US election.
Biden stepped aside as candidate in late July and was replaced by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who faces Trump in a tight race for the Nov 5 US elections.
In August, the United States accused Iran of launching cyber operations against the campaigns of both US presidential candidates. Iran denied the allegations.
