Iran’s attempts to kill Mike Pompeo, other US officials ‘real’: Blinken
- US is spending over US$2 million per month to protect the former secretary of state
- Pompeo was an architect of the Trump administration’s hard-line approach to Tehran
Iran’s attempts to assassinate former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo are real and ongoing, his successor, Antony Blinken, told Congress on Tuesday.
Testifying before a Senate panel, Blinken acknowledged details made public last month in a sensitive State Department report that outlined a security arrangement for the former secretary involving round-the-clock government protection.
“I’m not sure what I can say in an open setting, but let me say generically that there is an ongoing threat against American officials, both present and past,” Blinken said. “We are making sure and we will make sure for as long as it takes that we’re protecting our people, present and former, if they’re under threat.”
Pompeo, a former US secretary of state and CIA director under President Donald Trump, was one of the architects of the Trump administration’s hard-line approach to Tehran, reimplementing sanctions after the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal and supporting the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian general.
All former secretaries of state automatically receive protection from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security for 180 days after leaving office.
But Blinken has repeatedly extended that protection for 60-day increments due to “a serious and credible threat from a foreign power or agent of a foreign power arising from duties performed by former Secretary Pompeo while employed by the department,” according to the sensitive State Department report to Congress last month.