U.S. Detected Potential Iranian Plot to Kill Trump Separate From Saturday’s Shooting

New York Times-July16th2024

By Peter Baker, Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes

Peter Baker covers the White House. Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes cover of national security.

U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking a potential Iranian assassination plot against former President Donald J. Trump in the weeks before a gunman opened fire last weekend, several officials said on Tuesday, but they added that they did not consider the threat related to the shooting that wounded Mr. Trump.

The intelligence prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, officials said. Yet whatever additional measures were taken did not stop a 20-year-old local man from clambering on top of a nearby warehouse roof to shoot at Mr. Trump, grazing his right ear and coming close to killing him.

The National Security Council contacted the Secret Service to be sure it was tracking the latest reporting and the agency shared the information with the head of Mr. Trump’s detail, according to a national security official, who like others shared sensitive information on condition of anonymity.

The Trump campaign was informed “in passing” by the Secret Service of a general uptick in threats against Mr. Trump but was not made aware of any specific dangers related to Iranian individuals or groups, according to a person briefed on the interactions between the campaign and Secret Service. It was not clear what, if anything, Mr. Trump himself was told.

The intelligence that prompted the warning was new, but consistent with previous threat information against lower-level current and former U.S. officials, according to officials informed about the matter. The intensifying campaign season, with increasingly frequent public rallies, offered more opportunities for an attack. Several national security officials said that although the threat was taken seriously, it did not appear from the intelligence to be fully developed.

Officials would not discuss how they had come by the information, but said that their conclusion was drawn from multiple strands of intelligence collected by multiple agencies that were not clear until they were all put together into a single picture. While Iran has targeted Americans before, trying to assassinate a former president now running for his old office would be a dramatic escalation that could risk war, so U.S. officials were trying to determine if it was merely aspirational or if there was a concrete plan.

Either way, several officials said the Secret Service had recently surged additional “resources and assets,” although they declined to describe specifically what changes had been made. The fact that security was already enhanced for the Butler rally because of the apparently unrelated threat will raise further questions about the failure of the Secret Service to protect Mr. Trump.

One U.S. official briefed on the intelligence was sharply critical of the Secret Service for allowing the Pennsylvania gunman to get so close, arguing that the agency’s knowledge of the Iranian threat should have prompted it to be more cautious. President Biden has already ordered an independent review of the security breakdown in Butler, and Congress is planning its own inquiries.

Authorities have identified Saturday’s gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from nearby Bethel Park, Pa., but have yet to publicly describe any motivation for the shooting. Mr. Crooks, who was killed by Secret Service snipers, was a registered Republican but once gave $15 to a progressive political group. He left no social media trail that revealed any strong political feelings. People who knew him said he kept to himself but was often bullied in high school.