Military bases around Washington, D.C., have become an increasingly common refuge for some of President Donald Trump's most powerful officials, as threats linked to Iran and a surge in threats against public officials raise security concerns across the administration.
"So you have this combination of a permission structure on the left for violence, combine it with the ability to track it and create a long paper trail, and the numbers explode, and these threat matrices go crazy," former Secret Service agent and former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the latest senior administration official to relocate to a military installation, joining a growing number of top Trump officials living behind military gates as federal authorities confront security threats that extend well beyond the White House.
"After The Wall Street Journal published an article featuring an online photo that allowed the location of the Secretary’s Georgetown home to be geo-located, security concerns began to increase which have now forced the Secretary to relocate to a military base for his safety. The news media has an obligation to act responsibly amid growing threats against public officials," a source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital.
Threats against Bessent had reached "more than an advanced stage" amid reported Iranian assassination threats, a senior administration official told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, but did not elaborate.
The Iranian threats against Bessent come amid a documented history of alleged Tehran-backed assassination plots targeting senior U.S. officials.
Attorney General Todd Blanche also relocated to a military base from his home around March, a different source familiar with the arrangements told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
The Justice Department charged a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2022 in an alleged murder-for-hire plot targeting former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, while prosecutors disclosed in 2024 that another Iranian operative had allegedly been tasked with developing a plan to assassinate Trump.
Bongino said federal protection decisions are generally driven by threat assessments that account for threatening communications, social media activity and intelligence gathered by security personnel. Agencies responsible for protecting senior officials use those assessments to determine what level of protection is necessary.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said last month that threats against the agency's full-time protectees had increased more than 40% from the previous year, with roughly 10,000 threat cases recorded in 2026 at the time.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Secret Service for comment.
"Pretty much, sadly, anyone at the cabinet, or even sub-cabinet level, with any kind of public persona in the Trump administration, needed a detail," Bongino said.
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and multiple attempts on President Donald Trump's life have heightened concerns about political violence, as security officials confront a growing volume of threats against public officials.
Bongino pointed to his own experience as FBI deputy director, saying his security needs were comparable to those of some of the government's highest-ranking law enforcement officials.
"Mine was on par with the attorney general and the FBI director that we had to expand it," Bongino said of his threat assessment and security detail. "It was an independent analysis."
Bongino said social media has made threats against public officials easier to track, but the sheer volume of online activity has also created more work for investigators trying to determine which threats are credible.
No comments:
Post a Comment