A Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran was charged with murder-for-hire on Tuesday as part of a foiled scheme to assassinate a politician or government official on U.S. soil.
Former president Donald Trump was believed to be one of many targets of Asif Merchant, who was arrested last month and remains in federal custody, sources told the New York Post.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed a criminal complaint on Tuesday against Merchant, 46, who faces one count. In June, Merchant traveled to New York City, where he met with undercover FBI agents posing as hitmen to hire for carrying out “ongoing” political assassinations, according to the complaint. The plot was foiled by law enforcement before any attack could occur.
Merchant was arrested on July 12, the day before Trump was shot in the ear at his campaign rally in western Pennsylvania. The Iranian-tied plot is unrelated to that failed attempt on Trump’s life, according to authorities.
Attorney General Merrick Garland connected Merchant’s actions to the Iranian government’s “brazen and unrelenting efforts” to get revenge against U.S. public officials for the January 2020 killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, for which Trump claimed responsibility.
“The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens, and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security,” Garland said in a statement.
News outlets reported last month that Trump’s security detail had been increased after authorities obtained intelligence indicating Iran was preparing to assassinate the former president, which Tehran denied.
There was no indication that Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired at Trump during his Pennsylvania rally last month, was connected to the Iranian plot. However, Merchant is believed to be.
After spending time in Iran, the Pakistani immigrant traveled to the U.S. in April and contacted an individual who would later become a confidential source working with law enforcement. Two months later, he met with the two supposed hitmen to request their services, which the complaint lists as “theft of documents, arranging protests at political rallies, and for them to ‘kill somebody.'” He subsequently paid them $5,000 in cash as an advance payment.
Merchant planned to instruct the purported hitmen on whom to kill during either the last week of August or first week of September, after he had already departed the U.S. Merchant tried catching an international flight on the day that he was arrested.
“This dangerous murder-for-hire plot exposed in today’s charges allegedly was orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is straight out of the Iranian playbook,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said. “A foreign-directed plot to kill a public official, or any U.S. citizen, is a threat to our national security and will be met with the full might and resources of the FBI.”