The Justice Department has charged a Pakistani man who has alleged ties to the Iranian government with seeking to carry out political assassinations, a case that prompted the US government to increase security for former President Donald Trump and other officials, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.
FBI investigators believe that Trump and other current and former US government officials were the intended targets of the plot, a US official briefed on the matter said.
Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of traveling to New York City and working with a hit man to carry out the assassinations in late August or early September, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York.
Merchant was arrested on July 12 while preparing to leave the United States, prosecutors said, shortly after he met with purported hitmen who he believed would carry the murders but were actually undercover law enforcement officers. He is in federal custody.
Merchant said that he wanted to target individuals in the United States who are “hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world,” according to court documents, adding that “these are not just normal people.”
The FBI investigated the alleged international murder-for-hire plot in the weeks before a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania nearly assassinated the former president at one of his rallies. A law enforcement official told CNN that investigators have not found evidence that Merchant had any connection to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The FBI believes it foiled Merchant’s plot before any attack, and in the weeks since his arrest he has cooperated with investigators, according to US officials. But the Iranian government’s known threats against Trump, prompted the FBI to pass on the intelligence to the US Secret Service, which increased security protection for the former president, officials have said.
As part of the plot, prosecutors say, Merchant was seeking men to commit the actual assassinations, a woman to do “reconnaissance,” and around 25 people “who could perform a protest as a distraction after the murder occurred.”
A lawyer for Merchant denied that he was cooperating with authorities, saying the claim was “inaccurate” and “irresponsible.”
The plot revealed by US prosecutors on Tuesday adds to a growing list of detailed Iranian plans to allegedly kill Trump, according to national security officials.
The US government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran may try to retaliate for a 2020 US drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a top general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by trying to kill Trump or his former advisers.
“We have not received any reports on this matter from the U.S. Government,” a spokesperson for Iran’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations told CNN when asked about the Justice Department charges. “However, it is evident that the modus operandi in question contradicts the Iranian Government’s policy of legally prosecuting the murderer of General Soleimani.”
US prosecutors have charged other individuals for similar assassination attempts in the past, including charges brought in 2022 against a 45-year-old Iranian national and IRGC member who allegedly tried to pay $300,000 to an individual in the US to kill former national security adviser John Bolton. In that case, prosecutors allege that the plot was “likely in retaliation” for Soleimani’s death.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that the US “will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”
The alleged plot
Merchant arrived in New York City in April, prosecutors say, and aimed to hire a hit man who would carry out assassinations against officials on US soil. Although Merchant is a Pakistani national, prosecutors say he spent time in Iran and has family there.
Once in the United States, Merchant allegedly contacted someone who he believed would assist him in the murder-for-hire plot. That person, however, contacted the FBI and began working for investigators as a confidential source.
Merchant met with the confidential human source in early June, prosecutors say, and said that he wanted he wanted to find people in New York to do three things: steal documents or USB drives from one victim’s home, plan protests at political rallies and carry out assassinations. Merchant allegedly told the confidential human source that the work was not a one-time opportunity and made a “finger gun” motion with his hand.
As the meeting went on, Merchant spoke of a “party” back home with whom he was working, and started planning potential scenarios – even asking the confidential human source to explain how a person with “security” that was “all around” would die, prosecutors say.
Later that month, Merchant met with law enforcement officers working undercover as hitmen, according to prosecutors, and said he wanted them to kill a “political person in late August or early September.” Merchant allegedly arranged to pay them a $5,000 advance on the assassination.
He also allegedly told the hitmen to communicate with him about their plans in code, saying that “the word ‘tee-shirt’ would mean a ‘protest’ (because it was the ‘lightest’ job), the phrase ‘flannel shirt’ would mean ‘stealing,’ because it was ‘heavier work,’ and the phrase ‘fleece jacket,’ would mean ‘the third task … commit the act of the game.’” The third part of his plan, according to prosecutors, were the assassinations.
Merchant planned to leave the country before the assassination, prosecutors say, but was arrested before he could go.
This story has been updated with additional details.
