The Scoop
Outgoing US President Joe Biden’s White House homeland security team urged President-elect Donald Trump’s team to focus on a number of major threats that include Iran’s plots against dissidents and current and former US officials, according to details of the private briefing shared with Semafor.
Liz Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top homeland security adviser, briefed the incoming Trump team headed by Stephen Miller on seven top priorities. Beyond “Iranian lethal plotting” against its own domestic dissidents and current and US former officials, the outgoing officials also stressed the need to counter global and domestic terrorism, including racially and ethnically motivated threats; and biological threats like the avian flu outbreak and those arising from coinciding advancements in artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
Other threats on the Biden team’s list were natural disasters; cyber and physical threats to critical infrastructure; the fentanyl crisis; and the challenge posed by drones.
US officials have warned about Iran’s plots to assassinate former Trump officials like ex-national security adviser John Bolton; the US government obtained intelligence last year related to an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.
Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in September that the Biden administration was “very intensely” tracking Iranian threats against a “number of senior officials,” including both former Trump officials and those serving in the Biden administration.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian recently denied orchestrating a plot to kill Trump during the campaign, dismissing it as “another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia.”
Notable
- Iran is in a weakened state as it prepares for the return of Trump to the White House, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- Trump’s team is preparing sanctions packages, including one focused on Iran, Bloomberg reported.