Iran’s attempts to murder former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo are real and ongoing, his successor Antony Blinken told Congress on Tuesday.

“I’m not sure what I can say in an open setting, but let me say generically that there is an ongoing threat against American officials, both present and past,” Blinken said. “We are making sure and we will make sure for as long as it takes that we’re protecting our people, present and former, if they’re under threat.”

Blinken’s statement was in response to a question by Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who asked whether the Biden administration was demanding that Iran promise “not to murder a former secretary of state.”

“They know what they’d need to do to address this problem, and that’s pretty straightforward,” Blinken said. “Within the context of any engagements we have, directly or indirectly with Iranians, one of the strong messages we send to them is, they need to stop targeting our people – period.”

According to a State Department report revealed last month, Pompeo is under 24-hour security at a cost of over $2 million per month. The report said that protecting Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook between August 2021 and February 2022 amounted to $13.1 million.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)