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Secret Service agents protect Trump after gunfire on Saturday |
Homeland Security officials say Donald Trump's security has been heightened in the past few weeks after US officials learned of an Iranian plot to assassinate him. officials said there was no known connection between Iran's plot and the assassination of the former president in Pennsylvania on Saturday. But revelations about the security crackdown have raised more questions about how 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to climb into a building and come so close to opening fire on Trump. The US secret service and the Trump campaign have been briefed on the threat to Iran and increased security as a result, according to a US national security official. Trump and officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have been threatened by Tehran since he ordered the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force, in 2020. Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the US Secret Service, said that the Secret Service and other agencies "continue to receive new information about threats and take steps to improve resources when necessary." "We can't talk about specific threats, but to say that the Secret Service is making threats and responding well." Trump's campaign said he had nothing to do with security and would refer questions to. Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said US security officials "have been investigating Iranian threats against the Trump administration for years." "These threats stem from Iran's desire to avenge the killing of Soleimani," he said. "We take this as a matter of national and homeland security priority."
However, he reiterated that the investigation "did not find any connection" between Crooks and "foreigners or his friends or associates."
The UN mission of Iran called the report "absurd and cruel," adding that Trump "is a criminal who must be tried and punished."
In 2022, the Department of Justice announced criminal charges against a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused of orchestrating a plot to assassinate Bolton.
lawyers said the plot was "probably revenge" for the killing of Suleimani.
questions were asked about how police and fair workers at the Butler County Fairgrounds in Pennsylvania approached Crooks. 's intelligence chief admitted that local police were in the building when Crooks was on the roof, looking for Trump from 130 feet up.
CBS News, the alkhabrfdakika partner in the US, reported that three police snipers were in the house and saw the Crooks climbing up to the roof.
The local sheriff's department referred the alkhabrfdakika inquiries to the state police, who said they were not in charge of the area where the house was located.
A local police spokesman told the alkhabrfdakika that "everything" requested by the secret service has been provided, including the 30-40 police officers present.
President Joe Biden has ordered an independent investigation into how the bomber killed Trump, and the Secret Service is overseeing a congressional investigation.