Israeli intelligence agents have laid the groundwork to assassinate the President of the United States, embarking upon a foreign influence operation to convince the public that Iran has placed Trump as their number one target.
President Donald Trump’s statement that Iran may attempt to assassinate him may not have been an off-handed comment, but rather based on what Israeli intelligence told him.
On Wednesday the President said “And you know what? I may be gone too. Because I’m their number one target” when speaking about Iran at the NATO summit. The statement was reportedly spurred on by a report from Israeli intelligence.
“Israel shared intelligence with the United States that Iran had recently devised a new plan to assassinate President Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN, adding another layer of tension as a ceasefire deal between the countries comes under strain,” CNN reported Thursday.
The recent warning came “this week,” indicating it may have preceded Trump’s Wednesday statement.
“One of the sources said the warning came this week. Another source said the US had picked up a steady drumbeat of intelligence in recent weeks about possible plans to assassinate Trump, but the warning from Israel was new and concerned a specific plot,” CNN said.
Trump previously made statements about Iran looking to assassinate him, statements which could open the door to Israel assassinating him to blame Iran, thus getting an expansion of U.S. military operations against the Islamic Republic.
Some U.S. officials reportedly insinuated that the Israeli report may be a type of foreign influence operation, intended to sway Trump’s decision-making in the Iran war.
“Other American officials suggested the Israeli report could be an effort to sway Trump’s decision-making as he weighs whether to intensify American military action against Iran,” CNN said.
The recent narrative of an Islamic Republic assassination plot appears to originate entirely out of the Jewish State.
“The details of the plot that Israel warned about were not immediately clear, and two sources familiar with the matter said the U.S. had not vetted it themselves nor were they tracking it before the Israeli warning. The U.S. government has long warned that Iran may try to kill Trump in retaliation for the 2020 drone strike he ordered which killed a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani,” CNN said.
Trump’s statements indicate he may fully believe the reports to be true.
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long. These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer. You know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early. And that’s the way I feel.”
It is still unclear if any U.S. intelligence is corroborating the Israeli allegations.
“Later, Trump said he’d recently learned of a new list that ranked him as Iran’s top assassination target. It’s not clear if he was referring to the new Israeli intelligence information,” CNN said.