Tehran on Wednesday categorically rejected claims made in US media this week about alleged evidence of an Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. However, it strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Iran’s intention for such an action, considering such allegations to have malicious political motives and objectives,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said in a statement published on the ministry’s official site.
Kanaani’s comments were echoed by Iranian acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
“As you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran, immediately following the assassination of General Soleimani, tried to judicially and legally follow this assassination at Iranian courts. And at the same time, we have tried to make use of the international judicial and legal procedures in order to prosecute the perpetrators and advisors who helped in this assassination. Accordingly, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make use of all legal potentials inside the country or at the international level in order to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Kani said.
“The Americans have openly said that they assassinated the senior Iranian military commander. So it is our natural right in order to follow this issue and those who are accused in this case, they should be brought to justice in a just court,” Kani added.
Two senior US officials ‘familiar with intelligence’ told Politico that the Biden administration has collected information that Iran was actively working on ‘plots to kill’ Trump, and that “intelligence has ratcheted up in recent months and officials have become more confident in Tehran’s intentions.” The sources admitted that there seemed to be “no evidence” of Iranian involvement in Saturday’s assassination attempt.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told the outlet that Washington had “invested extraordinary resources in developing additional information about these threats, disrupting individuals involved in these threats...and directly warning Iran.”
CNN’s sources claimed the Secret Service, which has faced grilling over its dramatic failure to adequately protect Trump or secure the rural Pennsylvania rally site, had actually “increased” Trump’s security in the face of the supposed Iranian threat.
“Secret Service learned of the increased threat from this threat stream,” CNN’s US national security official source, said. “NSC directly contacted USSS at a senior level to be absolutely sure they continued to track the latest reporting. USSS shared this information with the detail lead, and the Trump campaign was made aware of an evolving threat. In response to the increased threat, Secret Service surged resources and assets for the protection of former President Trump. All of this was in advance of Saturday,” the source added.
Politico and CNN’s followers on social media didn’t buy the stories, calling them a “ridiculous distraction,” and a possible attempt by the security state to drum up support for another proxy war. “Is this actual journalism or just warmongering propaganda from anonymous officials reported as fact?” one person asked. “You know what this tells me? The deep state did it. One hundred percent guaranteed now. Iran had nothing to do with it,” one MAGA fan wrote. “They ramped up the security so much random dudes on the ground had to alert them to a gunman on a roof. CNN repeats every lie the gov’t tells them,” another wrote, pointing to Saturday’s eyebrow-raising string of security failures.
IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, prompting Iran to lob missiles at a pair of US military bases in Iraq and bringing Iran and the US to the brink of an all-out war. Soleimani, 62 at the time of death, was one of Iran’s most popular generals and public figures, and gained a celebrated status across the Middle East for his role Iran’s multi-decade-long fight against Islamist extremists. Trump has repeatedly bragged about personally ordering Soleimani’s killing, comparing him to the late ISIS* leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose militants the IRGC had a key role in crushing in both Iraq and Syria.
* Also known as IS, Daesh, Islamic State, a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.