The arrest on July 12 resulted in enhanced security for former President Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
and certain U.S. government officials who the FBI
...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time...reportedly determined were the suspect's targets.
A Justice Department official confirmed the case involving Merchant was the threat that Secret Service was aware of when it became to ramp up Trump's security in the lead up to the Butler, Pa. rally where he was shot.
Federal prosecutors filed the charges in Brooklyn against Merchant, who reportedly traveled to New York City and collaborated with hitmen on the plot.
Merchant is currently in federal custody after getting arrested while allegedly planning to leave the U.S.
| The Times of Israel has a photo of the miscreant, and adds: |
Federal officials identified Asif Raza Merchant, 46, as a Pakistani citizen who has said he has a wife and children in Iran. He traveled frequently to Iran, Syria and Iraq, the Justice Department said and allegedly sought to hire a hitman to assassinate a politician or a US government official in the United States.
Soleimani, who headed the IRGC’s Quds Force, a US-designated terrorist group, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to take “revenge” for the killing.
Court documents do not identify any of the potential targets, but the case was unsealed just weeks after US officials disclosed that a threat on Donald Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally last month in which Trump was injured by a gunman’s bullet.
FBI Director Christopher Wary said the Pakistani national had “close ties to Iran” and that the alleged murder-for-hire plot was “straight out of the Iranian playbook.”
Asif Merchant traveled to New York in April for the purpose of hiring hitmen, even paying a $5,000 advance to two would-be assassins who were actually undercover law enforcement officers.
The instructions prosecutors say he gave to the men he thought he was hiring were for killings to take place in August or September — after he had left the country.
Merchant was arrested on July 12 as he planned to leave the country.
In August 2022, the United States charged a member of the Revolutionary Guards with plotting to assassinate former US National Security Advisor John Bolton. The Justice Department said Shahram Poursafi, who remains at large, had offered to pay an individual in the United States $300,000 to kill Bolton.
Iran has dismissed the claim that it had plotted to kill Bolton as “fiction.”
Related:
Shahram Poursafi 12/04/2022 Iran said using more hired assassins in plots against dissidents, Israelis and Jews
Shahram Poursafi 08/19/2022 Iranian Operatives Are On American Soil Conducting ‘Pattern Of Life’ Analyses
Shahram Poursafi 08/13/2022 'The murder plots on US soil inspired by Tehran: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and a Brooklyn dissident have been 'targeted for assassination by Iran' in recent weeks - as Salman Rushdie fights for his life after stabbing attack
Shahram Poursafi 12/04/2022 Iran said using more hired assassins in plots against dissidents, Israelis and Jews
Shahram Poursafi 08/19/2022 Iranian Operatives Are On American Soil Conducting ‘Pattern Of Life’ Analyses
Shahram Poursafi 08/13/2022 'The murder plots on US soil inspired by Tehran: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and a Brooklyn dissident have been 'targeted for assassination by Iran' in recent weeks - as Salman Rushdie fights for his life after stabbing attack