Trump Hints at Iran Link to His 2 Assassination Attempts, Despite the Available Evidence

Former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday suggested that Iran might have been behind the two assassination attempts against him even as officials have said there is no evidence to link those plots to Iranian threats.

Mr. Trump was briefed on Tuesday by intelligence officials about threats from Iran, his campaign said. U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking a potential Iranian assassination plot against him in the weeks before a gunman fired at him in July at his rally in Butler, Pa. But officials have found no evidence to link Iran to either the Pennsylvania gunman or the man who the authorities say tried to shoot Mr. Trump at his golf course in Florida this month.

Still, in a wide-ranging speech in North Carolina, Mr. Trump said the F.B.I. was moving too slowly to investigate both assassination attempts, including possible ties to Iran. “They may or may not involve, but possibly do, Iran,” Mr. Trump said. “But I don’t really know.”

Building on his yearslong effort to discredit federal investigations into him by contending that they are politically motivated, Mr. Trump argued that the F.B.I. was overly focused on him and on the “J6 hostages,” the name he has given to those arrested over their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

And though Mr. Trump has spent much of his campaign accusing President Biden of being a warmonger, he said that if he were president, he would have threatened military action against Iran if it had made similar threats.

“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Mr. Trump said.