The U.S. received multiple warnings from Israel over the past year that Iran was planning to assassinate President Donald Trump, including one issued before a secret Air Force One ruse in Türkiye.
U.S. intelligence officials were unable to independently verify the threats, according to a current U.S. official and two former officials familiar with the matter.
The warnings, which were shared with U.S. intelligence agencies and, in some cases, conveyed directly by Israeli officials to senior White House officials, included alleged plans to shoot Trump with a sniper or recruit an attacker to stab him at a large public event, the sources said.
The warnings began in the lead-up to the 12-day war in June 2025 and became more frequent before the United States decided to enter the war with Iran in February, according to the sources.
The most detailed warning came ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara in July, the U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter said. Israeli officials briefed the White House on intelligence suggesting that Iran could attempt to kill Trump while he was traveling aboard Air Force One to the summit, potentially using a shoulder-launched missile, the officials said.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long assessed that Iran seeks revenge for Trump's 2020 killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. But the CIA has been unable to independently corroborate some of the specific threats against Trump's life that Israeli intelligence has shared since early last year, the officials said.
In the case of the NATO episode, a Turkish official said the country's intelligence agencies also had no evidence to corroborate the Israeli claim about the threat to Trump's life, an assessment that Türkiye shared with U.S. officials.
Despite the lack of verification, White House officials and the Secret Service have taken steps to mitigate the threats out of an abundance of caution, including an extraordinary deception operation during Trump's trip to Türkiye that involved moving him from Air Force One to a different aircraft for his flight out of the country.
The episode underscores how Israeli intelligence is influencing the Trump administration's decision-making on Iran at a time of heightened tensions with Tehran and broader disagreement between U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments of Iran's threat overall.
Earlier this year, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon, even as Israel argued that Tehran posed an urgent threat. Despite the reports from the U.S. intelligence community, Trump moved forward with strikes in Iran in February. Trump also took into consideration intelligence shared by Israel that Tehran had tried to assassinate him before launching the military campaign, Reuters previously reported.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy disputed that Israel was using its intelligence to influence U.S. policy on Iran.
"The same people who claim that Israel is trying to influence U.S. policy through alleged intelligence sharing would just as soon accuse Israel of concealing critical information if it benefited their own agenda," the spokesperson said.
The White House and CIA declined to comment.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to discuss specific intelligence matters but said the agency remains focused on Trump's security amid recent assassination attempts and an increase in threats against the president.
"The U.S. Secret Service continuously analyzes a wide range of information to guide our protective operations in real time and across every location we secure," he said.
Close alliance
The U.S. has long relied heavily on Israeli intelligence on Middle East matters, particularly those involving Iran.
The current and former officials said Israeli intelligence on Iran typically flows to the CIA or National Security Agency through formal channels and is subsequently analyzed, according to two former U.S. officials.
U.S. intelligence agencies often cannot verify Israeli intelligence but use other forms of information to make judgments about its authenticity and accuracy, the officials said.
In several instances during the two U.S. military offensives in Iran, the CIA assessed that it had "low confidence" in Israeli intelligence about threats posed by Iran, including any plans to assassinate Trump, according to a former U.S. official and another person familiar with the matter.
It is unclear how widely those assessments have been circulated within the administration.
The NSA declined to comment.
Two former U.S. officials described several instances to Reuters in which senior Israeli officials and representatives over the past year called the White House, including the Situation Room, to brief senior Trump officials directly on Iranian threats.
The direct engagement comes amid a breakdown in U.S. intelligence sharing within the Trump administration.
Last year, amid increased tensions with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA stopped working on joint assessments with the National Intelligence Council, the former officials said.
The council is the U.S. intelligence community's top analytical group, overseen by the ODNI, that produces reports reflecting the broader intelligence community's views. The CIA is the largest contributor to its assessments.
Fewer recent Iran assessments by the NIC have stemmed partly from recent layoffs at the ODNI, the officials and another person familiar with the matter said.