Ex-CIA chief decries security failings around Trump assassination attempt

Leon Panetta says lapses ‘particularly disturbing’ given reports of threats from Iran towards former president

The former CIA director Leon Panetta decried security failings around the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania last Saturday, particularly given reports of Iranian threats to the former president.

Speaking on the One Decision podcast, which he co-hosts with Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of the British intelligence service MI6, Panetta said: “It’s particularly disturbing because of what we found out: that the intelligence community provided information to the Secret Service that there’s … assassination threats from Iran, on former President Trump as well as others, but they as a result of that supposedly increased the deployment of Secret Service protection.”