Newsman: U.S. national security agencies are warning that President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be “an attractive potential target” for violent extremists. But they have said say there are no specific credible threats.
The possible threats detailed in a security assessment ahead of the inauguration reflect the heightened political — and potentially violent — environment in which Donald Trump will take the oath to assume power.
Potential perpetrators, particularly those with “election related grievances,” may see the president-elect’s swearing-in as “their last opportunity to influence the election results through violence,” a group of intelligence and law enforcement agencies wrote in a threat assessment, which hasn’t been made public. POLITICO reviewed the intelligent assessment and published report on it.
The threat assessment, compiled by the FBI, Secret Service, Capitol Police, the Washington D.C. government and the Supreme Court’s police department, laid out a host of nightmare scenarios and the types of people who could make them reality. Foreign terrorists, domestic extremists and lone wolves could initiate bomb hoaxes, swatting calls, drone flights or vehicle-ramming attacks, they say.
Then there’s Iran. The Islamic Republic has long sought to kill Trump or his national security advisers as revenge for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which Trump ordered during his first term. The threat assessment said that 700,000 users on the social media app Telegram threatened to assassinate Trump the day after Election Day, in response to a video posted by a media entity aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The agencies’ concerns reflect the heightened political — and potentially violent — environment of Trump’s inauguration ceremony. Officials have been on high alert for months after two assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 campaign and recent attacks this year in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
Law enforcement; too, are beefing up security efforts for Jan. 20. Police from around the country will pour into D.C. The city’s police department will be reinforced with around 4,000 officers, police chief Pamela Smith said at a press conference Monday. That’s in addition to the nearly 1,000 officers supporting Capitol Police, a Capitol security official said.
In total, there will be approximately 25,000 law enforcement and military personnel on-site to secure the inauguration, Matt McCool, Special Agent in Charge for the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, said at Monday’s press conference.
Law enforcement officials also worry that protests surrounding the inauguration could turn tumultuous. A number of groups have applied for demonstration permits, including some who have previously arranged protests that ended with arrests.
“Past protests by some of these individuals have involved traffic blockades, trespassing, property destruction, and resisting arrest,” the threat assessment added, without detailing these protesters’ ideologies.
Just last week, Capitol police arrested a man trying to bring in a machete and three knives into the visitors’ center while President Jimmy Carter was lying in state. That same day, police arrested another man who lit a car on fire near the Capitol while Trump was there.
A spokesperson for Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department said the agency has spent months coordinating plans to protect the event with its partners.
The Capitol Police department, meanwhile, has had a dedicated planning team focusing on the inauguration since May, according to a senior Capitol security official who was granted anonymity to discuss non-public planning. Capitol Police operations will also be bolstered as the day nears, and the department has been working with the Pentagon and the D.C. National Guard, the official said. She added that Capitol Police are working with the largest-ever number of different law enforcement agencies to secure the event.
