Three former Trump officials say they requested protection from increased Iranian threats in 2023
By Hannah Rabinowitz, Evan Perez, Kylie Atwood, Holmes Lybrand and Zachary Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — Three former Trump administration officials asked the Justice Department for help protecting themselves due to increased threats from Iran, according to letters obtained by CNN.
The three individuals – former Trump advisers Matthew Pottinger, Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway – wrote to the Justice Department in January 2023 asking for additional protection, sources familiar with the matter said.
NBC News first reported on the letter.
“It is clear there are specific, credible threats against us and our families by Iran and those inspired to act on Iran’s behalf,” the letter reads. “This necessitates urgent steps to improve our physical and cyber security.”
“We appreciate all the efforts taken to protect us now and, in the future, but judge measures taken to protect us are no longer adequate,” it says.
But sources familiar with the matter say that the department never received their letter. Members of Congress then reached out to the Justice Department on the officials’ behalf, the sources said, prompting the Justice Department to respond last month and refer the issue to the US Secret Service.
“The Department is aware of and deeply concerned about this category of threats,” a June letter from Justice Department officials, which is addressed to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, reads. It continues, “… and specifically those you reference in your letter … from three former government officials requesting federal protective services.”
Coates told CNN they have not heard a response from the Secret Service. CNN has reached out to the Secret Service for comment.
The US government has long raised concerns that Iran would seek retaliation for the 2020 drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The letter from the three former advisers to former President Donald Trump cites a video from the IRGC posted on social media that, the letter says, “explicitly threatens former U.S. Officials including ourselves with imminent assassination by drone, sniper fire, bomb, lethal injection, or stabbing in retaliation for the strike against Qassem Soleimani.”
The group had been in touch with the FBI about those threats said one source.
Several other former Trump administration officials that Iran has blamed for Soleimani’s death have been the subject of threats by the Iranian government, including Trump’s former national security advisers John Bolton and Robert O’Brien and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. O’Brien no longer has a US government security detail, but Pompeo does.
The letter also cites another post from an account it says is “presumably affiliated with the regime,” which included photos of over two dozen current and former officials “depicting us as ‘most wanted fugitives’ and stating ‘There is no night that we sleep without thinking about you … Revenge is near. Very near!’” the letter states.
The revelation also comes as CNN exclusively reported that US authorities obtained intelligence from a human source in recent weeks on a plot by Iran to try to assassinate Trump. The intel prompted the Secret Service to increase security around the former president.
“Obviously the heightened threats to the former president fill all of us in the Iranian crosshairs with concern,” Coates told CNN Wednesday. “He has to be protected first and foremost but it would also be nice for the rest of us not to have to wait 18 months for a response for a request for assistance.”
CNN has also reached out to Pottinger and Greenway for comment. A source close to Pottinger confirmed he was among the former officials who requested protection.
The-CNN-Wire
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