Days into the U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said confidently that the leader of the Iranian covert unit that had planned to assassinate President Trump had been “hunted down and killed.”
“Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh,” Mr. Hegseth boasted last week.
But Mr. Hegseth did not identify the man. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has clarified or provided additional details.
U.S. officials privately acknowledge that the story is complicated.
U.S. officials and others briefed on the intelligence said Mr. Hegseth was referring to Rahman Makdam, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who was targeted last week in an airstrike.
And officials say Mr. Hegseth’s statement that Mr. Makdam led the unit that plotted the assassination is somewhat overstated. Mr. Makdam has overseen that unit as part of his broader responsibilities, and has been involved in other repressive acts in Iran from his job inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps special operations division. But officials said there was not intelligence placing him in a direct role of plotting to kill Mr. Trump.
Aides and allies of the president say that Mr. Trump does not like to discuss the assassination attempts on him, but that Iran’s efforts to kill him were a factor as he considered military options against Iran.
Israeli intelligence gathered the original information that Iran was plotting to kill Mr. Trump and passed it to the United States, according to people briefed on the information.
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