Treasury Secretary Bessent Moves to Military Base Amid Iranian Threats to His Life

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has recently moved out of his home and onto a military base, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously because the information is sensitive. The reason, they said, is a set of Iranian threats against his life.

Over the past several weeks, US officials concluded that Iranian plotting against current and former American officials had reached a more advanced stage. Intelligence about threats to Bessent was part of what led them there, the people said.

The reasons he is a target are tied to his job. Since August, Bessent has led an economic pressure campaign meant to isolate Iran financially, through tougher sanctions and restrictions on trade routes. That role has made him one of the administration officials Iran most wants to harm, the sources said. A central aim of the campaign is to cut off money to the Revolutionary Guard, the most powerful arm of Iran's military, which also controls much of the country's economy.

How serious the threats are remains unclear. US officials have noted that Iran's ability to carry out large-scale attacks in the United States and elsewhere overseas is limited. But they have also treated specific, targeted threats against individuals as serious. One example is the murder-for-hire plot against president Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign. A Treasury department spokesperson said in a statement that Bessent "will not be deterred by the Iranian regime's threats" and remains committed to the campaign to squeeze Iran's economy.

Bessent is not the first. He is the latest senior Trump administration official to leave a Washington-area home for a military base or other protected housing. At least half a dozen did so last year, including Stephen Miller, now White House chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, then attorney general. The administration has not disclosed the scope of the threats against top officials, and not all of them involve Iran. In Bondi's case, the move was said to relate partly to an increase in threats after the US military seized former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from a hideout in Caracas and brought him to New York to face federal criminal charges.

The wider picture has hardened too. Last month the US Government put employees across the Middle East on heightened alert and moved to reduce staffing at embassies and consulates, citing intelligence that Iran was in the advanced stages of planning attacks on Americans. The US military also abruptly moved bombers from a base in the United Kingdom after a suspected terrorist plot against the site.

The pressure campaign carries a larger purpose. The administration hopes it will spare the country from resuming major military operations in the war Trump started on February 28th, a deeply unpopular conflict he has repeatedly promised to end. Bessent and other officials say it is working: Iran's economy is shrinking, its currency has collapsed, and living standards have fallen sharply.

Yet two officials with direct knowledge of US intelligence said Iran's hard-line leadership is determined to hold on to power at nearly any cost. That suggests economic pain alone may not bring regime change.

Iran has targeted Trump since January 2020, when he ordered the drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force. In 2024, federal prosecutors charged Farhad Shakeri, whom they described as a Guard operative, with plotting to kill Trump in retaliation. Several national security officials involved in the lead-up to that strike also faced Iranian threats. The Biden administration kept some of their government security details in place, but Trump revoked protections almost immediately after returning to office, including for some former advisers who still saw themselves as his allies.