Iran provided written assurance to president Joe Biden's administration weeks before the election that it wouldn't try to kill Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Iran delivered the message Oct. 14 in response to a private written warning the previous month that U.S. officials say reflected the administration's public message that threats against the Republican nominee were a top-line national security issue and that any attempt to kill him would be treated as an act of war.
Iran has vowed revenge against the former president for ordering the January 2020 drone strike that killed military leader Qassem Soleimani, and former Trump administration officials Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Brian Hook still have Secret Service protection due to threats on their lives from Tehran.
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The Justice Department revealed last week that Iranian agents plotted to assassinate Trump before the election as part of an ongoing campaign against him, and in August federal prosecutors charged a Pakistani man with links to Iran with plotting to kill him.
A Secret Service sniper killed a 20-year-old gunman who fired gunshots at Trump at a July campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and a 58-year-old man was arrested in September and charged with plotting to assassinate the once-and-future president, although investigators say Iran has not links to either of those cases.
Iran has recently downplayed claims that it was trying to kill Trump, who won re-election last week, and described allegations by U.S. officials as a “third-rate comedy.”