Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called on the Biden administration to deny Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi a visa to enter the United States and attend UN ceremonies next month, citing Tehran's active plots to assassinate him and other top US officials.
Pompeo, one of the main targets of Iran's assassination campaign, told the Washington Free Beacon in his first public comments on the matter that the Biden administration is setting a dangerous precedent by permitting Raisi into America just weeks after the hardline regime threatened to "turn New York into ruins and hell" with an intercontinental ballistic missile strike.
"We worked for four years to deny Iranian terrorists the freedom to put Americans at risk," Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon. "This administration is allowing them to come to New York City while actively engaged in efforts to kill Americans on US soil. The Iranians just recently sponsored an attack that was almost successful in killing an American in that very city. We can do better."
Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, told the Free Beacon the UN is providing a megaphone to the leader of the world’s top sponsor of terror.
"This shows just how corrupt and broken the UN is," said Haley, who has publicly called for Raisi to be denied a visa. "Even when Iranian terrorists try to assassinate our officials, on our soil, the UN welcomes them with open arms and lets them give a speech."
"Under no circumstances should the Biden administration allow Raisi to set foot in our country," Haley said. "He should not be allowed to stain American soil."
The Biden administration is poised to grant Raisi entrance to America even as his hardline regime actively plots to kill Pompeo and other top US officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton, who was recently the target of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
An IRGC member was arrested by federal authorities and charged in the plot, according to documents unsealed last week by the Justice Department.
