Trump inauguration ‘potential target’ for threats, agencies warn
Baku, January 15, AZERTAC
U.S. national security agencies are warning that President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be “an attractive potential target” for violent extremists even as they say there are no specific credible threats, according to Politico.
Potential perpetrators, particularly those with “election related grievances,” may see the president-elect’s swearing-in as “their last opportunity to influence the election results through violence,” a group of intelligence and law enforcement agencies wrote in a threat assessment, which hasn’t been made public, and was reviewed by POLITICO.
The agencies’ concerns reflect the heightened political — and potentially violent — environment in which Trump will assume power. Law enforcement, too, are beefing up security efforts for Jan. 20. Police from around the country will pour into D.C. The city’s police department will be reinforced with around 4,000 officers, police chief Pamela Smith said at a press conference Monday. That’s in addition to the nearly 1,000 officers supporting Capitol Police, a Capitol security official said.
In total, there will be approximately 25,000 law enforcement and military personnel on-site to secure the inauguration, Matt McCool, Special Agent in Charge for the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, said at Monday’s press conference.
Officials have been on high alert for months after two assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 campaign and recent attacks this year in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
The threat assessment, compiled by the FBI, Secret Service, Capitol Police, the Washington D.C. government and the Supreme Court’s police department, laid out a host of nightmare scenarios and the types of people who could make them reality. Foreign terrorists, domestic extremists and lone wolves could initiate bomb hoaxes, swatting calls, drone flights or vehicle-ramming attacks, they say.
Then there’s Iran. The Islamic Republic has long sought to kill Trump or his national security advisers as revenge for the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which Trump ordered during his first term. The threat assessment said that 700,000 users on the social media app Telegram threatened to assassinate Trump the day after Election Day, in response to a video posted by a media entity aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Law enforcement officials also worry that protests surrounding the inauguration could turn tumultuous. A number of groups have applied for demonstration permits, including some who have previously arranged protests that ended with arrests.
“Past protests by some of these individuals have involved traffic blockades, trespassing, property destruction, and resisting arrest,” the threat assessment added, without detailing these protesters’ ideologies.
The document also noted that protests related to the conflict in Gaza have disrupted Capitol Hill with little warning, and that the fighting there could inspire stateside extremists.
The document is similarly formatted to a threat assessment agencies sent out in 2021 before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Side by side, the documents capture how dangers have changed in the last four years — notably regarding Iran’s threats against Trump and tensions fueled by the Gaza war. The 2025 assessment also highlights new concerns, particularly about bomb hoaxes and swatting.
John Cohen, a former counterterrorism official who helped with security planning for Biden’s inauguration, said this year’s event faces more threats than the one four years ago, even though the 2021 swearing-in came just weeks after rioters stormed the Capitol.
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