DOJ Charges Pakistani Man With Ties to Iran in Foiled Plot to Assassinate Trump, Govt. Officials
How many other people are hunting Americans on our soil?
The Department of Justice announced charges against Asif Merchant, 46, a Pakistani man with ties to Iran, for trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump and other government officials..
Officials said the investigation took place before Thomas Matthews Crooks shot Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
FBI Special Agent Anthony Cipriano and other assets tracked Merchant and others undercover, finding him working with national and international sources to assassinate Trump in retaliation for the killing of IRGC Officer Qasem Soleimani in 2022.
Iran promised revenge after a drone strike took out Soleimani.
“Working on behalf of others overseas, Merchant planned the murder of U.S. government officials on American soil,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York. “This prosecution demonstrates that this Office and the entire Department of Justice will take swift and decisive action to protect our nation’s security, our government officials and our citizens from foreign threats.”
Merchant lives in Pakistan with a wife and children. He also said he has a wife and children in Iran.
Merchant’s travel records show frequent stops in Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
The plot took place between April 2024 and July 2024. Merchant tried to hire hitmen in Brooklyn to carry out the assassination between August and September.
Merchant contacted a person who told the FBI about the plans and became a confidential source (CS) with the FBI.
Merchant told the CS he spent two weeks in Iran before he flew to the U.S.
The CS then put Merchant in touch with two supposed hitmen.
The plot involved three schemes:
- Stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home
- Planning a protest
- Killing a politician or government official
Merchant illustrated the assassination plot, “including a target (the person to be killed), a crowd, surrounding buildings, and streets.” Merchant wanted the CS to tell him how the target could die, explaining that security would surround the target.
Merchant said the killing would take place after he left the States, but they would still communicate in code.
The CS asked the Merchant to speak to his “party” overseas. Merchant said, “that the party back home told him to ‘finalize’ the plan and leave the U.S.”
The CS put Merchant in charge of the “hitmen” in Manhattan. Merchant laid out the plan to the men.
Merchant acted as a representative for an outside party the whole time, “indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S.”
“Using the plural tense to indicate he was working with people overseas, Merchant stated that ‘we’ would give the instructions, including the target name, to the hitmen either the first week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024, when Merchant was out of the U.S.,” according to the filing.
Merchant paid the men a downpayment of $5,000.
Merchant went back to Pakistan, but came back around June 21.
Law enforcement arrested Merchant around July 12 as he tried to leave the country.
“The complaint unsealed today underscores, yet again, that those who engage in lethal plotting on U.S. soil will face the full force of the American justice system,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the National Security Division. “The targeting of former and current officials by foreign actors is an affront to our sovereignty and our democratic institutions and the Department of Justice will use every possible tool to expose and disrupt this egregious activity.”
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Comments
In the wake of the assassination attempt on President Trump, what are the odds that those who tracked and caught Merchant will be subject to disciplinary actions?
Subotai Bahadur
Look, a squirrel!
Did the Cheka hatch this plot as well?
At what point will we play hardball and start executing these foreign agents and those who sent them?
Likely never. Did we ever except in actual, declared, wartime?
Last I heard there is still at least one “actual declared” war in progress (i.e. with an AUMF that Congress has not rescinded).
Not that wars need to be declared. The courts have ruled since the 1790s that an undeclared war is just as valid as a declared one.
That indictment reads like amateur hour and perhaps an intelligence op to collect information on FBI confidential sources that someone – maybe the Iranians, maybe someone else – ran on this patsy. I’m dubious Iran is going to launch an assassination plot based around recruiting ‘hitmen’ in the US. Al-Qaeda didn’t recruit private contractors. They flew in their own true-believers. I suspect Iran would do the same thing.
Hmmm, a Muslim who thinks a problem can be solved through murder. Seems he’s in full harmony with the Democrat Party’s abortion thinking and their wishful thinking to taking out Trump.
The DOJ charged him for the plot having been foiled.
I agree with TargaGTS-
This is some clown being trotted out to prove
“See? We ARE TOO doing our jobs!”
Anybody trying to hire hitmen is just a nut, not a serious threat.
True. Iran will send hitmen, not hire them.
Has been my thought ever since they tossed out that “The Iranians have a hitman looking for Trump administration people to kill” back in March or so. It was always a prep for “Oh noes, too bad Trump was assassinated; at least we caught the guy!” This is just cover for “No, we did not totally drop the ball; see who we caught? And he’s even a Middle Easterner, like you guys expect!”
Five thousand, American, does not sound like kind of money you would think it took to get a real professional hitter to take on a potential suicide assignment. A down payment, yes, but still…. And we all know that the Iranians have plenty of money to spend.
yeah
look at us look how fair we are
we care about justice blah blah blah
communistnazi agenda
They need to bury the patsies.
Levon Helm died… 🙁
What happened to the failure of imagination?
Now that war with Iran is on the table, this comes out.
Two weird things- $5k does not seem like remotely enough to hire someone to do a job like this. And the arrest was literally the day before the Trump shooting — and they didn’t beef up his protective detail that week?
Maybe they saw this as PR, an attempt to shift attention from the Trump shooting, and their gross incompetence or complicity.
Not buying one bit of this. Not one bit.
I would not even rent it.
From Bill Melgusian this morning…
“Per multiple federal law enforcement sources to me and @davidspunt, the Pakistani national w/ Iranian ties who was arrested by the FBI for plotting an assassination on US soil was admitted into the US via parole for “significant public benefit” when CBP encountered him at the airport in TX in April after he flew in from overseas, and the sponsor of his parole was the FBI’s Dallas office, for “security interests”.
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1821303065997406640
“Using the plural tense”
Plural isn’t a tense, you drone of a bureaucrat.
Hey now. Stop imposing your white supremacist grammar rules on s/he/it! S/he/it worked hard to get this DEI hire position.
Isn’t IRAN worried about Harris ☺
Hello, My name is Red Herring. please ignore the failures of DHS and its children and pay attn to me.
$5K to put The Trump into box?
Phoney on its face. If true, they certainly got their money’s worth… the perp made and busted.
This smells bad. Like post incident cover, mostly. “SEE we DID find our patsy, just in time…. to trot out a cover story.