In yet another revelation that only makes Secret Service brass — namely the agency's Director Kimberly Cheatle — look more caught-off-guard during Saturday's attempt on former President Donald Trump's life, it turns out the USSS had actually increased protection for Trump in recent weeks leading up to the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Yet, the attack still took place.
The impetus for what was supposed to be higher security for Trump: intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate the former president. In a report on the development, CNN cited "multiple people briefed on the matter" who told the outlet that American officials had "obtained intelligence from a human source in recent weeks on a plot by Iran to try to assassinate Donald Trump." That intelligence, the report stated, "led to the Secret Service increasing security around the former president in recent weeks."
So, what transpired on Saturday took place despite an increase in protection for Trump? This situation just keeps getting worse. Raising more questions, CNN's report said that it is "not clear whether the specifics of the Iran threat were shared with the Trump campaign" previously.
CNN's sources said there is, so far at least, "no indication" that Saturday's assassination attempt was connected to the Iranian plot. A relief, perhaps?
Back in the summer of 2022, Townhall reported on unsealed legal filings that revealed new information about Iranian plots to assassinate senior Trump administration officials on American soil as some sort of retribution for the righteous 2020 strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad and sent Tehran limping into the shadows.
The unsealed documents outlined a terrifying and brazen plot for former National Security Advisor John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to be murdered by Iranians, including Shahram Poursafi, while going about their business in the U.S. between October 2021 and April 2022.
For months, Iran's gunmen have been walking around the streets of DC stalking John Bolton.
— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) August 10, 2022
DOJ's indictment says Iran wanted to assassinate another top U.S. government official.
I can confirm the second target is former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.https://t.co/7PBdgf86Wj
That is, we know that murderous Iranian nationals have already been operating inside the U.S. — and who knows how many more have taken advantage of Biden's open borders to expand Tehran's reach and operations inside America — and continuing to threaten Trump and those in his orbit even after his administration left office in January 2021.
For the Ayatollah's genocidal regime — Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terror, remember? — a second Trump term poses a significant threat to its ability to profit off violence and spread terror. The former president proved that he and the U.S. military can reach out and touch Iranian military leaders wherever they are, and Trump would not sit idly by as Biden has while Iran's terror proxies wage war against Israel, attack and kill U.S. servicemembers in the Middle East, interrupt shipping traffic on the Red Sea, and threaten a broader war in the region. It's not outside the realm of possibilities — and a writer can hope — for Trump to immediately order a series of targeted strikes against the regime to send Iran and its terrorist beneficiaries scrambling for cover upon taking office.
As CNN surmised in its story on this latest plot twist to surface in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump, the "existence of the intelligence threat from a hostile foreign intelligence agency — and the enhanced security for Trump — raises new questions about the security lapses at the Saturday rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and how a 20-year-old man managed to access a nearby rooftop to fire shots that injured the former president."
More questions to which, hopefully sooner rather than later, Americans will begin to see some answers.