With Trump Facing Threats, Security and Politics Intersect as Never Before
He has been the target of two would-be assassins in a matter of months. The intelligence agencies have told him that Iran is still threatening to kill him, and Iranian hackers got into the email accounts of his aides.
Those developments have left former President Donald J. Trump and his staff fearful, frustrated and dependent for the candidate’s safety on federal agencies at the heart of what Mr. Trump has long portrayed as a hostile “deep state.”
But Mr. Trump and his team have also seized on his predicament for political ends, suggesting without evidence that the situation is at least partly the fault of the Biden-Harris administration for being unwilling to provide him the protection he needs to travel the country freely and meet voters on his terms.
Mr. Trump approaches Election Day as simultaneously a subject of federal prosecution, a candidate who has threatened to fire much of the federal bureaucracy and a target dependent for information and protection on the same agencies likely to endure his retribution should he take office again.
Interviews with people close to Mr. Trump and officials across the federal government reveal how deeply unnerved the Trump campaign has been by the assassination attempts and the Iranian threats and hacking — and how the American security apparatus has responded.
At the same time, as Mr. Trump attacks and politicizes the agencies charged with both investigating the threats and protecting him, officials in the Biden White House and at the Secret Service worry that he is laying the groundwork to blame them should he lose the election.
