The United States received written assurances from Iran before the presidential election that its leaders were not actively seeking to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, CBS News has confirmed, according to a source with direct knowledge of the correspondence. The message came after the White House claimed in September that killing a former US president or official would be considered an act of war by the Biden administration.
“We consider this a matter of national and homeland security of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats,” said National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett, in a statement in September.
Iran said in its message, transmitted by a third party, that it understood this principle. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report Iran’s message to the United States.
The Justice Department is currently prosecuting at least two individuals suspected of participating in murder-for-hire plots aimed at killing Trump while he was still a candidate. A operative working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told federal investigators he was tasked in September to ‘surveil and ultimately assassinate’ Assetaccording to court records released last week.
Prosecutors said Farhad Shakeri, believed to be residing in Iran, told investigators in a telephone interview that unnamed IRGC officials had pressured him to plan an attack on Asset which will take place in October. If the plan could not come to fruition in time, Iranian officials ordered Shakeri to delay the plot until after the elections because the official “believed that [Trump] would be lose the elections“, the charging documents state.
In early August, a Pakistani national with alleged links to Iran was arrested and charged for planning a murder-for-hire scheme targeting U.S. government officials and politicians, according to charging documents released Tuesday.
A US official stressed that Iran had not tasked its most effective proxy force, Hezbollah, with carrying out these plots. The official called Iran’s approach so far “good if it works.” If it doesn’t, then it’s not a problem.”
In response to inquiries suggesting that “Iran told the United States it would not try to kill Trump,” the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran said it would not comment on the official messages between the two countries.
The mission said in a statement: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has long declared its commitment to pursuing the assassination of Martyr Soleimani through legal and judicial channels, while fully adhering to recognized principles of international law.”
Trump angered the Iranians for several reasons. He left the international Iran nuclear deal, which lifted some sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. He also directed the 2020 film air strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani, Iranian Commander-in-Chief. Since then, some Trump administration and military officials have received threats from the regime, including: Robert O’Brienwho was national security advisor during the strike. His predecessor in the post, John Bolton, who was part of the maximum pressure campaign that brought sanctions against Tehran, also received threats.
In 2022, the US intelligence community estimated that Iran would threaten Americans – both directly and through proxy attacks – and was committed to developing networks inside the United States. Two continuing threat assessments submitted to Congress by the State Department in January 2022 cite a “serious and credible threat” to the life of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. and former Trump administration Iranian envoy Brian Hook. Private analyzes showed that in 2021 and again in 2022, the State Department determined that round-the-clock diplomatic security funded by American taxpayers was necessary to protect the two men. This continues today.
Several former officials spoke to CBS about the duty-to-warn notices they recently received from the FBI and other agencies regarding the continuing threat from Iran and Iranian-hired actors, implying that United States takes the threat seriously and does not take Iran into account. the plan’s insurance at their nominal value.
Robert Legare contributed to this report.
Marguerite Brennan
