‘Big threats’: Trump briefed on alleged assassination threats from Iran

Intelligence officials have warned Republican presidential candidate of ‘real and specific threats from Iran’, according to his campaign.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed “big threats” on his life after his US intelligence briefing on alleged threats from Iran to assassinate him.

The former United States president said on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that “the entire US military is watching and waiting”.

“Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again … I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before,” he said.

His campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement on Tuesday that Trump was warned by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States”.

“Intelligence officials have identified that these continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months,” Cheung said.

Law enforcement officials were working to ensure Trump was protected and the November 5 presidential election was free from interference, he added.

Iran has previously denied Washington’s claims of interfering in US affairs. Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to a request by the Reuters news agency for comment late on Tuesday.

An ODNI spokesperson acknowledged the briefing on Tuesday but declined to address any specifics, Reuters said.

It was not immediately clear if the threats referred to by the campaign and Trump himself were new or threats that had previously been reported.

Trump last month accused Iran of hacking his campaign, with his team alleging the Iranian government was stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents without providing evidence. The allegations came after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign attempts to interfere in this year’s US election campaign.

July shooting

Iran rejected accusations that it was trying to kill Trump two months ago, shortly after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania, killing one person and wounding the presidential contender.

Days after the July 13 assassination attempt, US media reported that authorities had received intelligence on an alleged Iranian plot against the Republican, prompting his protection to be boosted. Iran rejected the “malicious” accusations.

Separately, earlier this month, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate Trump in retaliation for the 2020 killing by the US of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. Trump was president at the time and ordered the attack.

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 cited by Reuters.

Federal authorities are separately investigating an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September. There has been no indication of Iranian involvement.