Some U.S. national security officials are convinced that agencies devoted to protecting the security of presidents, former presidents, presidential candidates and their families, as well as current and former State Department secretaries, have been compromised by Iranian intelligence assets, three knowledgeable sources told RealClearPolitics.
Longstanding concerns about Iranian infiltration of key U.S. protective agencies have intensified in recent weeks in the wake of the mid-July assassination attempt at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally that wounded former President Donald Trump.
“Our counterintelligence vigilance for our security protective services in the United States, be it Diplomatic Security Services, be it Secret Service, be it in the U.S. Marshals or in the Treasury [Department], have been penetrated by people who are wittingly or unwittingly providing tangible support for Iranian network activities in this country,” a former senior intelligence official in the Obama administration told RCP over the weekend.
It’s unclear if employees in the U.S. protective agencies are knowingly participating in Iranian espionage or are simply interacting with assets for the Tehran government in social circles and inadvertently sharing information with foreign adversaries.
The concerns about Iranian penetration of U.S. protective security agencies predate the Butler rally. But the assassination attempt and the events leading up to it have only intensified fears that U.S. agencies haven’t done enough to counter the Iranian spying threat.
One day before would-be assassin Thomas Crooks managed to fire off eight shots at Trump and the crowd from an unmanned roof at the Butler rally, the FBI arrested Asif Raza Merchant, 46, in New York and charged the Pakistani with plotting to kill U.S. leaders, including Trump.
Justice Department officials said they had no evidence linking Merchant’s plot to the Pennsylvania shooting, but they asserted that Merchant’s arrest had disrupted an expansive scheme that included efforts to steal computer files from U.S. officials. Merchant had recently spent two weeks in Iran.
The Secret Service had stepped up security for Trump’s Butler rally in response to a potential Iranian assassination plot against Trump, which U.S. intelligence agencies said they were tracking but did not indicate whether that threat was related to Merchant’s thwarted scheme.
After leaving Iran, Merchant flew from Pakistan to........