Iran will almost certainly be out for blood now that U.S. and Israeli forces took out Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, MS NOW's Rachel Maddow said on Monday — but the very group of U.S. counterintelligence officials tasked with keeping Americans safe from their retribution is out of a job because of a longstanding Donald Trump grudge.
"They're really good at this," Maddow said of Iran. "They can reach all around the globe to kill people when they want to, and they have done it ... They've killed or tried to kill their own dissidents and whistleblowers and political opponents, not over not only just over, you know, all over the Middle East, but throughout Europe. They have killed people. They've even tried to kill people here in the United States before."
"Their security services have reached all around the world to kill people, and they have done it sometimes by finding turncoats ... They've done it sometimes by just sending out their own agents into the world," said Maddow. "They have done it even by partnering with just straight-up criminals, by partnering with mobsters and drug gangs in order to carry out targeted killings for the Iranian regime. And they have done it for decades. I mean, you think Russia is good at flinging people out of windows and dosing people with exotic poisons all over the world? The Russians are pikers at this sort of thing compared to the Iranians, who have not only been doing it for decades, they have been very good at it for decades."
After the Trump administration took out Revolutionary Guard leader Qassem Suleimani, for instance, Iran made serious plots to assassinate National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and diplomatic adviser Brian Hook — all of whom needed constant security detail to keep them safe.
"Iran is a big country, more than 90 million people, and they are a powerful country with a sophisticated, intensively resourced, world-class, ruthless set of intelligence and security services, which, of course, target their own people at home to disastrous, murderous effect, particularly recently," said Maddow. "But those security services and intelligence services also have tentacles all around the world, and they have used them to target the regime's perceived enemies all over the world, including in the United States of America."
Thankfully, Maddow continued, the U.S. has for years had a top-notch team of counterintelligence officials at the FBI, known as CI-12, tasked with thwarting Iranian assassination plots. There's just one problem: Trump's FBI Director, Kash Patel, just gutted that unit, firing numerous agents because of their involvement in the investigation of Trump's classified document stash at Mar-a-Lago.
"But, you know, if you're Trump, who cares?" added Maddow. "I mean, the Iranians targeted Trump, too, but he has Secret Service protection. What does he care if they knock off anybody else? He'll be fine."