There is no evidence that Iran was behind the two assassination attempts against the former president.
Donald Trump’s campaign has requested the use of military aircraft to protect the former president in the final weeks of the election race — an unprecedented demand for a candidate in the United States.
The extraordinary request, which also included expanded flight restrictions over Trump’s residences and rallies and an array of military vehicles to shuttle him around, comes as many in Trump’s orbit have become convinced, without evidence, that Iran may have been behind two recent assassination attempts against the former president, The New York Times and Washington Post reported on Friday.
No presidential nominee in recent history has flown in military planes while campaigning before an election. Kamala Harris receives military protection and flies on Air Force Two, a military plane, because she is the sitting vice president.
Iran threat
Last month, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump was warned by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence “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 at the time.
Trump echoed the claim on his Truth Social platform, writing that “moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again”.
There is no evidence tying Iran to either of two recent assassination attempts against the former president, but the FBI has reportedly not ruled out the possibility of a connection. US intelligence officials believe Iran’s leaders may be seeking to avenge the assassination of the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, when Trump was president. Officials believe that Iran’s ability to strike within the US is limited.
According to The Washington Post, which cited emails and anonymous sources, the requests for military protection came after Trump’s campaign advisers received briefings in which the government said Iran is still actively plotting to kill him. The advisers have grown concerned about drones and missiles, the sources said.
Secret Service failures
The requests are the latest in an escalating battle between Trump’s team and the Secret Service, which has acknowledged its security failures during a July campaign rally where Trump was shot at and slightly wounded.
Both the attacker in that instance, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed on the scene, and Ryan Routh, a gunman who was found in September allegedly pointing a rifle through a fence at a West Palm Beach, Florida golf course where Trump was playing, are believed to have acted alone.
Routh was charged with attempted assassination and has pled not guilty.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service said in a statement that Trump is already receiving “the highest levels of protection”, including temporary flight restrictions over the former president’s residence and when he travels.