Intelligence officials have warned the Republican presidential candidate of “real and specific threats from Iran,” according to his campaign.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed to have received “major threats” against his life after receiving US intelligence about alleged threats from Iran to assassinate him.
The former US president said on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday that “the entire US military is watching and waiting.”
“Iran has already made moves that have not worked, but it will try again… I am surrounded by more men, weapons and guns than I have ever seen before,” he said.
His campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said in a statement Tuesday that Trump had been warned by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “about 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 ongoing and coordinated attacks have intensified in recent months,” Cheung said.
Law enforcement officials were working to ensure Trump was protected and the Nov. 5 presidential election was free from interference, he added.
Iran has previously denied Washington's accusations of interfering in U.S. affairs. Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency on Tuesday evening.
An ODNI spokesman acknowledged the briefing on Tuesday but declined to address specific details, Reuters said.
It was not immediately clear whether the threats referred to by the campaign and Trump himself were new or previously reported threats.
Last month, Trump accused Iran of hacking his campaign, with his team alleging that the Iranian government was stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents without providing evidence. The accusations came after Microsoft published a report detailing foreign attempts to interfere in this year's US election campaign.
July shooting
Iran rejected accusations that it was trying to kill Trump two months ago, shortly after a gunman opened fire at a rally in Pennsylvania, killing one person and wounding the presidential candidate.
Days after the July 13 assassination attempt, US media reported that authorities had received information about an alleged Iranian plot against the Republican, prompting his protection to be strengthened. Iran rejected the “malicious” accusations.
Separately, earlier this month, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate Trump in retaliation for the 2020 U.S. killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. Trump was president at the time and ordered the attack.
The defendant named Trump as a potential target but had not conceived of the plot as a plan to assassinate the former president, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by Reuters.
Federal authorities are separately investigating an apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his Florida golf course in mid-September. There has been no indication of Iranian involvement.
