The Secret Service was alerted about the specter of a “potential drone assault” by Iran on former President Donald Trump greater than a yr earlier than the first of two makes an attempt on his life over the summer season, an agent testified to Congress final month.
The unidentified agent made the disclosure throughout an Aug. 23 transcribed interview earlier than the Senate Committee on Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs’ everlasting investigative subcommittee. The transcript was launched late Wednesday.
The agent — who was current throughout the July 13 assault on Trump throughout a marketing campaign rally in Butler, Pa. — was requested what they knew about “any Iranian threats to Donald Trump.”
The agent confirmed they that they had been “knowledgeable and notified about an lively risk.”
When pressed for extra particulars, the agent initially demurred out of concern they might disclose categorised info.
Finally, nonetheless, they mentioned: “I do know that they’ve mentioned about [a] potential drone assault.”
In a later trade, the agent recalled being briefed on the risk across the time they joined Trump’s protecting element, on June 4, 2023.
Whereas Iran has lengthy needed to kill Trump and members of his former administration — together with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex-national safety adviser John Bolton — in retaliation for the unprecedented US-directed assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020, the discharge of the transcript Wednesday marked the primary time particular threats in opposition to the previous president’s life by Tehran have been made public.
Given the warning, the agent expressed “concern” that the Secret Service drone detection system was not operational throughout the Butler rally.
“It shocked me, like simply being on the market. They’re planning to have a protectee with 15-, 20,000 folks, in an out of doors occasion, when there’s an lively risk for the drone assault,” they mentioned. “That was positively one factor that clearly raised my considerations, and I do know, everybody’s considerations.”
“However,” the agent added, “it’s not throughout the Secret Service’s choice to resolve whether or not we’re going to do that or not. It’s extra like ensuring that we now have an excellent safety plan and a safe web site for that matter.”
The transcripts had been launched hours after Trump and his presidential marketing campaign introduced that there stays an lively risk in opposition to him from Iran.
“Huge threats on my life by Iran. Your entire U.S. Navy [sic] is watching and ready,” Trump, 78, wrote on Reality Social.
“I’m surrounded by extra males, weapons, and weapons than I’ve ever seen earlier than. Thanks to Congress for unanimously approving far more cash to Secret Service – Zero ‘NO’ Votes, strictly bipartisan.
“Good to see Republicans and Democrats get collectively on one thing. An assault on a former President is a Dying Want for the attacker!”
Additionally on Wednesday, an Iranian-made animation depicting Tehran utilizing two drones to assassinate Trump and Pompeo resurfaced on-line.
Within the animation, a small rolling drone outfitted with cameras and lasers rolls into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in West Palm Seaside, Fla., and locates the previous president and his allies, who’re then focused with an aerial drone.
Posted to Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei’s web site on Jan. 14, 2022, the animation received a Tehran-sponsored contest that requested contributors to submit movies “on the subject of revenge on Trump [and] Pompeo and the murderers of Gen. #Soleimani,” in keeping with the web site.
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