A Pakistani national with ties to Iran was charged in a foiled plot to assassinate U.S. government officials on American soil, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Former President Donald Trump was one of the potential targets of the plot by Asif Merchant, who was arrested on July 12 in Texas before any attacks could be carried out, a senior law enforcement source told NBC News.
Merchant unwittingly coordinated with a confidential law enforcement source, who put him in touch with two more undercover agents purporting to be hitmen, the DOJ said.
Trump was nearly killed at a presidential campaign rally one day after Merchant's arrest, when a would-be assassin on a nearby rooftop fired at the Republican nominee while he was speaking onstage.
Law enforcement officials do not believe the alleged plot by Merchant is related to the assassination attempt against Trump at the rally in Pennsylvania, NBC reported.
Trump's Secret Service protection was increased prior to that rally, after U.S. officials learned of an Iranian plot to kill Trump, NBC reported in mid-July. Trump has been a focus of Iran's anger since January 2020, when he authorized the killing of a top Iranian general in Iraq.
Merchant's plot, which law enforcement first detected in April, was one of the factors that led to the beefed-up security around Trump, a law enforcement official told NBC.
"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 in a press release announcing the murder-for-hire case.
Merchant, 46, had orchestrated a plot to kill government officials since at least April, an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit for a criminal complaint that was unsealed Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
He spent time in Iran, then flew to the U.S., where he contacted an unnamed person who he thought could help him carry out the scheme, according to the complaint, which is dated July 14.
But that person allegedly reported Merchant to law enforcement, becoming a confidential source.
Merchant had initially contacted the source under the guise of offering business opportunities, the complaint says. He allegedly called the source in May and said he had an opportunity to earn $100,000 "in the 'yarn-dyed' clothing business."
Merchant allegedly met the source in a New York hotel room in early June and told him the opportunity would be ongoing, not a one-off event.
He then made a "finger gun" motion with his hand, indicating that the opportunity was related to murder, according to the complaint.
Merchant said he needed the source to arrange a rendezvous with hitmen in New York, the court filing says.
In a subsequent meeting, Merchant allegedly told the source that his three-pronged plot involved stealing documents from a target's home, planning a protest, and killing a politician or government official.
The "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."
Merchant then gamed out a potential assassination plot by moving objects around a napkin on a table, according to the complaint.
The source later put Merchant in touch with two "hitmen," who were actually undercover officers, the filing says.
Merchant paid the men $5,000 in cash in New York as an advance payment for murdering the officials, the complaint alleges.
Merchant allegedly made plans to leave the U.S. on July 12, but he was intercepted by law enforcement officers, who arrested him and searched his residence.
"For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran's brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General [Qassem] Soleimani," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in Tuesday's press release.
Soleimani, who was then Iran's most powerful general, was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, Iraq, in January 2020. Trump was president at that time.
