Prosecutors said a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sought the murder of the former national security adviser in retaliation for the killing of a top Iranian official by the U.S.
The Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday with plotting to assassinate John R. Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Donald J. Trump.
Prosecutors said the Iranian had offered $300,000 to hire someone to kill Mr. Bolton, a conservative foreign policy expert and hard-liner on Iran, in Washington or Maryland.
Officials with the department’s national security division said the planned murder of Mr. Bolton was likely in retaliation for the U.S. military’s killing in January 2020 of Qassim Suleimani, a top commander of the Revolutionary Guard, a branch of Iran’s military that is a power base for the country’s ruling military and political elites.
