The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is committing to tell Congress what it knows about foreign threats against the life of President Trump and other Americans.
The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies are headed to Capitol Hill in the coming week for annual meetings with lawmakers, and threats against individual Americans are on the agenda for discussion.
The Justice Department accused the Iranian regime of orchestrating a plot to assassinate Mr. Trump last year, and prosecutors charged an Iran-based operative for his role in murder-for-hire plots against Americans. Iran has disputed the charges.
Asked if it will share info with Congress on foreign efforts to kill the president, including the alleged Iranian plot, the ODNI indicated it would do so.
“ODNI has and will continue to provide consistent updates and briefs on this priority topic, and others, to Congress,” ODNI said in a statement on Friday. “DNI [Tulsi] Gabbard looks forward to the Annual Threat Assessment hearings next week where she and her colleagues will discuss threats facing our country, including threats against U.S. persons.”
Ms. Gabbard and the leadership of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency will meet with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday. The annual gathering will include both public and private hearings.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford said in an interview this week that lawmakers had not received a briefing on the alleged Iranian plot and foreign efforts targeting Mr. Trump.
Mr. Crawford, Arkansas Republican, told a small group of reporters he would not decline any such briefing and remains vigilant about threats from Iran and its proxies.
“If there was anything that kept me up at night, it would be Iran,” Mr. Crawford said.
Mr. Crawford is focused on the Western Hemisphere, where he told reporters he wants to see the U.S. counter Chinese and Russian moves.
He called for a “whole of hemisphere” approach for U.S. intelligence and detailed where he sees allies and causes for concern.
“Guatemala is probably our best ally in the hemisphere,” he said. “They want to be a partner. There are others where we see some great opportunity — Guyana and Suriname are sort of beneficiaries of some huge mineral wealth that has developed in the last four or five years.”
He expressed concern about China’s growing influence closer to the U.S. and sounded confident but not complacent about how America stacks up against China.
“We can still win in a peer-to-peer competition with the [Chinese Communist Party] but we don’t have a lot of time,” he said.
As he prepares for the meetings with the intelligence community chiefs, Mr. Crawford indicated he is also prioritizing oversight of the spy agencies’ “analytic integrity,” ensuring American officials provide high-quality analysis to the president.
