A Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran was arrested and charged with plotting a murder-for-hire scheme targeting U.S. government officials and politicians, according to charging documents unsealed Tuesday.
The man, 46-year-old Asif Merchant, is accused of planning to assassinate current and former government officials across the political spectrum, including former President and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, according to multiple sources familiar investigation.
Intelligence about Merchant's alleged plot was prominent in the information that prompted the U.S. Secret Service to further increase security assets for the former president in recent weeks, the sources said.
Although the timing of the charges coincides with the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is no indication that Merchant's plan of attack is at all related to that shooting.
"Law enforcement foiled the charged plot before any attack could be carried out. Our ongoing investigation has not found evidence that this defendant (Merchant) had any connection to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania," a law information official said in a statement to CBS News.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray have been investigating numerous threat streams from Iran against politicians and government officials that date back to the killing of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani during the Trump administration. Former national security adviser John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also received threats from the Iranian government, but they are not mentioned in court documents.
Merchant's alleged planning began in April, according to court documents, when he flew to the U.S. to "recruit individuals to carry out his plot to assassinate U.S. government officials." Investigators said he later met with an unnamed co-conspirator-turned-FBI-informant in New York and began a months-long relationship during which time Merchant revealed his plans to the unnamed individual.
During meetings in June, Merchant allegedly "made a 'finger gun' motion with his hand, indicating that the opportunity was related to a killing" and asked the FBI informant to set up meetings with potential hitmen.
Court papers revealed the plot included stealing documents or USB drives from an unnamed target's home, planning a protest as a distraction and "killing a politician or government official."
"People who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world," Merchant allegedly said. "These are not normal people."
He drew out the plan on a napkin inside his New York hotel room, prosecutors said, and told the individual "that there would be 'security all around' the person" they were planning to kill. At one point in June, Merchant and the FBI informant drove around New York City "looking for clubs where he could recruit other individuals to assist in his plot," according to court documents.
The unnamed individual arranged to have Merchant meet up with two undercover agents who Merchant thought were hitmen. "During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the 'representative' in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S.," prosecutors wrote. He later agreed to pay the men $5,000 ahead of the plot as an advance and created a coded language to speak about the alleged assassination plan in secret.
The phrase "fleece jacket" allegedly referred to the assassination plot, court documents revealed.
According to the criminal complaint, Merchant told the men he would provide more instructions about the alleged plot in "either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024," including the target name.
On June 21, investigators alleged Merchant traveled from Boston to New York to pay the hitmen and ultimately handed over $5,000 in cash. He then "reiterated that the plan was for the [undercover agents] to go forward with his three plots—the assassination, the protest, and the stealing of documents. Merchant added that he wanted the [undercover agents] to launder money for him as well," according to charging documents.
Law enforcement officials arrested Merchant on July 12 at his residence ahead of a planned trip outside of the U.S. During a search, they recovered a handwritten note inside his wallet that contained the codewords for the various aspects of the plot.
"For years, the Justice Department has been working to aggressively counter Iran's brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American government officials for the killing of General Soleimani," Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday. "The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would carry out Iran's lethal plotting against Americans."
Garland noted the greater awareness among Americans of the seriousness of threats against public officials after the assassination attempt against Trump but said investigators have found no evidence "of any link between the defendant charged in the complaint unsealed today and the attempted assassination of the former President in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13."
Thomas Crooks fired eight rounds at the rally, injuring Trump and two others and killing one man, Corey Comperatore. A Secret Service sniper then killed Crooks.
The Secret Service called the attack a failure and said the FBI is still investigating Crooks' motive.
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