Politics
Iran attempting cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure, officials say
WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies are “urgently warning” private sector companies throughout the nation that Iranian actors “are conducting exploitation activity” that has resulted in “disruptions across several U.S. critical infrastructure,” according to a government notice reviewed by The Times.
The Iranian cyber activity comes as President Trump is threatening to target Iran’s critical infrastructure in the coming hours, particularly its bridges and power plants.
Iran’s attack targeted products by Rockwell Automation’s Allen-Bradley, one of the most widely used industrial automation brands, according to the notice, which said that cyber actors affiliated with Iran were exploiting “programmable logic controllers across U.S. critical infrastructure.”
Tehran’s targeting campaigns against U.S. organizations “have recently escalated, likely in response to hostilities between Iran and the United States and Israel,” the notice warned.
“Iran-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are conducting exploitation activity targeting internet-facing operational technology (OT) devices, including programmable logic controllers (PLCs) manufactured by Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley,” the notice reads.
“U.S. organizations should urgently review the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) in this advisory for indications of current or historical activity on their networks,” it continues.
The advisory was issued Tuesday jointly by the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Security Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and Cyber Command.
Top executives from companies at the core of the nation’s ability to function — those leading America’s largest energy, water, transportation, and communications corporations — had already been taking it upon themselves to increase their vigilance over potential attacks, concerned that Trump’s willingness to target Iran’s critical infrastructure inadvertently put a mark on their backs.
Some fear Iran’s ability to conduct cyber operations that could take down transformers or power inverters, if not a wide-scale power system. Others are concerned about threats to brick-and-mortar sites from proxies of Tehran — physical attacks against facilities such as nuclear plants, or power management systems, the crown jewels of the sector.
Larger, even more capable actors, particularly Russia and China, may also take advantage of the fog of war to launch strikes themselves.
“There remains concern about Iranian cyber capabilities and retaliation if the U.S. carries through on threats to attack their infrastructure,” said Ernest Moniz, former U.S. secretary of energy under President Obama who helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. “There may already be backdoors, Trojan horses and malware hidden in our infrastructure.”
“I have to believe that the government cyber experts — or what’s left of them — are working closely and indeed overtime with the power companies and other infrastructure operators on cyber defense and intrusion detection and warning,” Moniz added.
Iran has demonstrated an ability to penetrate networks tied to critical U.S. infrastructure before.
In 2015, Iran-backed hackers accessed data associated with Calpine Corp., one of California’s largest power producers, obtaining detailed engineering diagrams and credentials related to power plant systems. Some were labeled “mission critical.” U.S. officials feared at the time that the breach would allow Tehran to initiate blackouts nationwide.
Since that time, companies at the center of the U.S. energy and telecommunications sectors have markedly improved their defenses. But Iran’s offensive capabilities have improved, as well.
Large players in the energy sector are operating with “a watchful eye and an elevated posture right now,” said Pedro J. Pizarro, president and chief executive officer of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, one of the nation’s largest electric utilities.
Companies like Edison have been operating under persistent threat for over a decade. In 2024, a pair of devastating cyber espionage attacks targeting U.S. critical infrastructure attributed to Chinese hackers, Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, were discovered after avoiding detection for at least three years.
The threat of a similarly latent attack — in which malware lies dormant in critical infrastructure systems, waiting for a signal to activate — is a real cause for concern in the sector, despite its best efforts and technological advances, experts and insiders said.
“The threat of cyber and physical attacks targeting critical infrastructure is not new,” said Jennifer DeCesaro, senior vice president of industry operations at the Edison Electric Institute, “which is why we partner with the government through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council to share actionable intelligence and prepare to respond to incidents that could affect our ability to provide electricity safely and reliably.”
The ESCC works closely with the National Security Council and its intelligence arms, particularly the intelligence agencies and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, to coordinate regular briefings on safety standards, best practices and intelligence tips.
The CIA declined to comment. A spokesperson with CISA, listed as out of office due to the ongoing federal funding hiatus for the Department of Homeland Security, could not be reached for comment.
Last summer, announcing a 40% cut to the workforce of her office, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard eliminated the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, previously seen as a critical fusion hub of information by private sector partners.
Asked to respond to the potential of retaliatory attacks against U.S. infrastructure, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, repeated the president’s threats.
“The Iranian regime has until 8PM Eastern Time to meet the moment and make a deal with the United States,” she said. “Only the president knows where things stand and what he will do.”
Trump has threatened to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if they fail to come to an agreement that ends its control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Ultimately, corporate executives shoulder much of the burden as the first line of defense for the country’s critical infrastructure, roughly 85% of which is owned by private sector companies.
Tom Fanning, former chief executive officer of Southern Co. and now executive committee chairman at the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure, said the threat from Iran is “credible.”
“I have not seen what I would describe as the existential threat, to take down a wide-ranging power system,” Fanning said. “Could those things be turned on? Sure. Is the United States critical infrastructure prepared to act? I think so.”
Last month, early on in the war, the Los Angeles Metro transit system was forced to shut down a portion of its network due to a hack. Authorities say it is still unclear who was behind the breach, but a source told The Times that Iran-backed hackers are being investigated as the potential culprit.
The transportation agency said its security team had “discovered unauthorized activity,” and were making sure its roughly 1,400 servers were secure before bringing them back online. The agency has emphasized the hack did not impact passengers’ commute time.
The FBI said it was aware of the hack. Homeland Security is working with local partners “to address cyber threats to critical infrastructure,” an official said.
“The reality is that the threats are here and now,” Fanning added. “The truth is, the bad guys are already here.”
Times staff writers Kevin Rector, Richard Winton and Rebecca Ellis, in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.
The Trump administration is scrambling to conduct environmental impact reviews of warehouses it plans to convert into immigrant holding facilities, after a flurry of lawsuits claiming the administration sidestepped federal requirements.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is buying the warehouses to help it increase the rate of deportations, which depends on having enough space to house detainees. The administration currently has about 58,000 immigrants in custody, and fell short of its target to reach 100,000 beds by the end of last year.
But the plan to buy and retrofit commercial warehouses to accommodate tens of thousands more detainees may be delayed after hitting roadblocks, including opposition from residents and officials in the communities where the warehouses are located. Now, states are trying to block the projects by arguing that the Trump administration failed to do environmental reviews required under federal law.
In court filings, ICE officials have argued the warehouse renovations are exempt from reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act, citing a variety of reasons.
Justice Department officials have voiced concern in recent weeks that the approach could leave the administration vulnerable to legal challenges, internal documents show. Those fears were realized this month when a federal judge in Maryland blocked plans to retrofit a warehouse in the state, citing the lack of an environmental review.
“That Maryland result changed their strategy,” said Jamison E. Colburn, a professor at Pennsylvania State University who focuses on environmental law. The administration’s move to conduct environmental reviews, he said, appeared to be “them biting the bullet in view of a bigger loss if they didn’t.”
Agency officials now have plans to conduct environmental assessments of at least two of the warehouse sites the government has purchased, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The reviews could take months, according to experts.
So far, the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, has purchased 11 warehouses across the country for about $1 billion.
In the Maryland case, the federal government argued that the project was exempt from a review under the National Environmental Policy Act because it was, among other things, not close to any environmentally sensitive zones and was in an area that had already been built on. In filings in New Jersey and Michigan, the government indicated it would complete the environmental assessments after developing more specific retrofit plans.
So far, legal challenges targeting environmental issues have been filed against warehouse projects in New Jersey, Michigan, Maryland and Arizona.
In a statement, homeland security officials said the agency had complied with federal laws and accused liberals of backing the effort to compel environmental reviews to slow down the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
The warehouse plan is also intended to help scale back the government’s reliance on private contractors and state entities. Owning more of the detention facilities would allow the government to have more control of the space. But a senior U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told The Times that the new homeland security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, had expressed skepticism about purchasing more warehouses.
Todd Lyons, the acting head of the immigration agency, told the House Appropriations Committee this month that Mr. Mullin was still studying ICE’s warehouse plans.
“He is looking at our whole detention plan. We’re making decisions based on if we’re going to move forward at those locations,” he said.
Mr. Lyons said the facilities would be constructed responsibly.
“It’s actually to be retrofitted to become a detention facility, one that we’ll actually be proud of, one that would actually have standards,” he said.
The environmental law in question is the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires a review by the government of the potential environmental impact of significant federal actions. If the agencies find that there might be an adverse impact, they must then do a more rigorous review.
In Maryland, state officials said in court filings that the warehouse project in Williamsport would inevitably lead to adverse environmental consequences. According to court filings, ICE purchased the Williamsport facility for around $100 million, with plans to convert it “into a facility to temporarily house and process” 500 and potentially as many as 1,500 immigrants.
“Converting the Williamsport warehouse into a massive immigration detention facility will have predictable impacts on the environmental, economic, and public health and safety interests of the State of Maryland,” the lawsuit read. “Among other things, these actions are likely to harm the state’s natural resources and environment — including a waterway that is a tributary to the Potomac River and important habitat to state-protected species.”
District Judge Brendan Hurson appeared to agree with that argument, saying the agency had not addressed key requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.
“Had D.H.S. done so, it likely would have found that the rapid transformation of a cargo-processing facility with four toilets and two water fountains into a temporary residence and workplace for hundreds, if not thousands, would jeopardize the health and safety of the surrounding ecosystem in myriad ways, most notably through the likely overtaxing of the sewer system,” the judge wrote.
Allison McCann and Albert Sun contributed reporting.
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California’s “First Partner,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom, ripped into President Donald Trump after his contentious “60 Minutes” interview with the female host, slamming the president for “speak[ing] to a woman journalist with that level of contempt.”
The interview included a contentious back-and-forth between Trump and Norah O’Donnell over her questions about the shooter from this past weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, with President Trump calling O’Donnell a “disgrace” and “disgraceful” amid the interview.
Trump’s comments came after O’Donnell was reading excerpts from the shooter’s alleged manifesto, which described the president as a “rapist,” “pedophile” and “traitor,” O’Donnell recounted during her talk with the president Sunday evening.
“My family and I watched the 60 Minutes interview with Donald Trump and Norah O’Donnell last night, and we were shocked. Seeing a president speak to a woman journalist with that level of contempt — and a clear allergy to facts — is disturbing, though at this point not unexpected given his pattern of behavior,” California Governor Gavin Newsom’s wife said in a scathing X post on Monday.
TRUMP REVEALS A ‘BIG POLITICIAN ON THE OTHER SIDE’ ASKED TO HUG HIM AFTER DINNER SHOOTING
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s first partner, speaks during a Gender Equity Summit in Sacramento, California, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Bloomberg’s Emily Chang meets California’s First Couple, Governor Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and visits their home in Marin County and offices in Sacramento to see how they work together. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“But that is the problem,” she continued. “Because when that level of disrespect from the highest office in the country repeats itself, it starts to trickle down into our culture and define what power looks like, shaping how boys and plenty of men see women and girls and what they come to accept as normal behavior.”
Fox News digital reached out to the White House and to representatives for Governor Newsom and his wife, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Trump’s “60 Minutes interview came Sunday evening after authorities identified the suspect as 31-year-old Cole Allen, of Torrance, Calif. Authorities indicated Allen had prepared a manifesto outlining his intent, which included anti-Trump and anti-Christian rhetoric on social media. O’Donnell, during the interview, read alleged portions of the document that alluded to concerns about Trump being a sexual abuser and a traitor, leading to a defensive reaction from Trump.
“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people,” Trump answered. “Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
UNEARTHED CLIP EXPOSES SHOCKING CLAIM BY NEWSOM’S WIFE ABOUT INMATES AT VIOLENT CALIFORNIA PRISON
“Do you think he was referring to you?” O’Donnell asked.
Norah O’Donnell on the new set of CBS Evening News with Norah ODonnell in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 16, 2022. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/CBS via Getty Images)
“I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all…stuff that has nothing to do with me,” Trump continued. “I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let’s say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably…’ I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things.”
O’Donnell interrupted to argue that she was quoting the alleged gunman’s words, but Trump continued to call her “disgraceful.”
“You shouldn’t be reading that on ’60 Minutes.’ You’re a disgrace. But go ahead. Let’s finish the interview,” Trump said.
NEWSOM TRIES TO GIVE TRUMP THE BIDEN TREATMENT, SAYS HE’S ‘NOT ALL THERE’
Trump’s “disgrace” comments garnered widespread attention online, including from Siebel Newsom, who said after the interview that the “culture of misogyny” exhibited by Trump “is on all of us, and it has to end.”
US President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, shortly after a shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
“Add in rhetoric rooted in political division, amplified by a digital ecosystem that rewards outrage and misinformation, and this cultural norm of hate, othering, and misogyny becomes pervasive,” Siebel Newsom continued. “Behavior that should be challenged gets normalized; what should raise concern is amplified and cheered on. It’s no wonder we have a culture that normalizes dominance and aggression toward women and girls, which not only silences them but also leads to internalized misogyny in others.”
However, conservatives rallied around Trump.
“What’s really disgusting about this clip is Norah O’Donnell’s fake innocent surprise: ‘oh you think he was referring to you?’ She knows perfectly well that every day some fellow Democrat like Ted Lieu calls Trump a pedophile and rapist,” said New York Post columnist Miranda Devine in response to pushback on Trump’s interview comments.
“Their white supremacy lies ran out of steam so this is the new hoax. Rich from a party that protects illegal alien child molesters.”
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“Norah O’Donnell may have reached the low point in disgusting and inhumane demagoguery disguised as journalism,” added former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “The idea that you would take the vicious dishonest and disgusting words of a would be killer who had been blocked by the Secret Service but would otherwise have killed a lot of people and you would dignify them by putting them on the air and asking the President of the United States to comment is about as destructive as anything a major reporter has done in a long time.”
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the US House of Representatives, speaks during the third day of Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, on July 17, 2024. (Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Gingrich said O’Donnell “should be fired for demeaning her entire profession and being the mouthpiece of a would-be killer.”
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Monday charged 31-year-old Torrance resident Cole Tomas Allen with attempting to assassinate President Trump after rushing past security at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner in Washington on Saturday.
The charge, announced during a brief arraignment hearing in federal court in Washington and detailed in a subsequent charging document, carries a potential sentence of life in prison for the Caltech graduate and high school tutor.
Prosecutors also charged Allen with transporting firearms across state lines while traveling by train from California to Washington and with discharging a firearm during the incident at the Washington Hilton, where officials said a federal agent was shot in his ballistic vest.
In the charging document, prosecutors also detailed an email Allen allegedly sent to family members just as he was preparing to breach the event perimeter, in which he allegedly wrote that top Trump administration officials were his target but that he was willing to “go through” others at the event to reach them.
Allen was instead taken down by agents shortly after rushing past them and before descending stairs and entering a ballroom where Trump and other top administration officials were seated. No officials were injured during the incident, which the White House described as the latest in a string of attempts on Trump’s life.
Federal public defenders assigned to represent Allen did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Allen could not be reached for comment. A person previously reached at the Allen family home in Torrance — which was searched by the FBI over the weekend — declined to comment.
At the morning hearing, Asst. U.S. Atty. Jocelyn Ballantine said Allen “traveled across multiple state lines with a firearm” and “attempted to assassinate the president with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun.”
Top administration officials — including acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel — echoed those claims at a subsequent news briefing. Blanche described Allen as a serious threat, while also downplaying his proximity to the president and the likelihood that he ever could have caused harm to administration officials.
“Law enforcement did not fail. They did exactly what they are trained to do,” Blanche said. He said Allen had either fallen or was tackled to the ground while under fire from law enforcement.
Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Allen was charged with attempting to assassinate the president because of his writings — which Trump and others in the administration have referred to as a “manifesto.”
Blanche said officials have seized devices from Allen’s hotel room and his home in Torrance, which could add additional context to his motivations, but officials were not prepared to discuss what may have been found on those devices. Pirro said additional charges were pending.
Blanche emphasized that the investigation into the incident is in its early stages. It still isn’t clear, for example, who fired the shot that struck the Secret Service agent.
“We’re still looking at that,” Blanche said.
In the charging document, prosecutors included the text of the manifesto — an emailed document they allege Allen had scheduled to automatically send to family members around the time he entered the secured area at the hotel, in which he declared that Trump administration officials were his targets.
In the emailed document, titled by the writer as an “Apology and Explanation,” Allen allegedly wrote that Trump administration officials would be “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest” in terms of how he targeted them.
“I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that,” he wrote, according to the charging document.
Allen allegedly wrote that Secret Service agents were “targets only if necessary, and to be incapacitated non-lethally if possible”; that police, hotel employees and hotel guests were not his targets; and that he would be using buckshot to “minimize casualties,” according to the document.
“I don’t expect forgiveness, but if I could have seen any other way to get this close, I would have taken it,” he wrote, according to the document. Allen, a tutor in Torrance, also apologized to his family, colleagues and students, but said he felt he had to act as a U.S. citizen represented by the Trump administration.
“What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” he allegedly wrote.
The charging document also described the initial moments when Allen entered the secured area and a Secret Service agent was allegedly shot in his ballistic vest.
Prosecutors wrote that federal agents “heard a loud gunshot” as Allen rushed through a metal detector holding a long gun, that a Secret Service officer identified only by the initials “V.G.” was “shot once in the chest” in a ballistic vest, and that he “drew his service weapon and fired multiple times at ALLEN, who fell to the ground and suffered minor injuries but was not shot.”
Allen was found in possession of a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a Rock Island Armory 1911 .38-caliber pistol, the document alleged.
Prosecutors requested Allen be held in detention. U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh, who presided over the hearing, set a second hearing for Thursday morning to determine whether Allen will be held in custody.
Federal public defenders assigned to Allen after he submitted a financial affidavit to the court requesting representation noted that Allen has no prior criminal record, a factor in determining a criminal suspect’s handling before trial.
Those attorneys — Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm — did not respond to a request for comment after the hearing.
Allen, clad in a royal blue jumpsuit, showed no visible injuries and said little at the hearing, aside from identifying himself and acknowledging that he understood the legal proceedings.
Allen had allegedly outlined his disdain for and intent to kill Trump administration officials in the manifesto written before the correspondents’ dinner. According to the New York Post, Allen in that document described himself as a “Friendly Federal Assassin” who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot any of the more than 2,600 people in attendance to reach officials.
Those at the event included hundreds of journalists and many Trump administration officials — including Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump.
Allen had booked a room at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner took place.
Trump in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday said he “wasn’t worried” at the sound of gunshots. “We live in a crazy world,” he said.
Trump, who has been dogged by questions about his relationship with the deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein throughout his second term, bristled at the shooter’s reference to a “pedophile” and “rapist” in the manifesto.
“I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody,” Trump said in the interview with CBS reporter Norah O’Donnell. “I’m not a pedophile.”
He also railed against O’Donnell for quoting that portion of the manifesto, saying it was inappropriate to do so.
During an earlier news conference Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House was considering whether to revise Secret Service protocols for large events attended by the president, despite his satisfaction with the agency’s performance at Saturday’s event.
Leavitt said the Secret Service successfully neutralized the suspect and cleared the president, first lady and vice president from the room within minutes.
Still, with major celebrations planned around the nation’s 250th anniversary, the World Cup and the Olympics, discussions on potential updates to Secret Service plans will begin this week, led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Leavitt said. For security reasons, the results of those discussions will likely be kept a secret, she added.
“If adjustments need to be made to protect the president, they will be made,” she said.
Leavitt also called on Congress to pass funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Secret Service, after a political impasse has led to an historic 73-day lapse in such funding.
Leavitt also suggested anti-Trump rhetoric from the president’s detractors played a role in him being targeted and needed to be toned down.
“It is inspiring these crazy people across the country to target not just the president, but those who work for him and those who support him,” Leavitt said.
“Nobody is recent years has faced more bullets and violence than President Trump,” she added. “This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators — yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party, and even some in the media.”
Blanche echoed that argument — pointing blame at the media, many of whom had been in the ballroom with Trump.
“When you have reporters, when you have media just being overly critical and calling the president horrible names for no reason and without evidence, without proof, it shouldn’t surprise us that this type of rhetoric takes place,” he said.
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