The Pakistani man was arrested on July 12 before leaving the U.S.
Topline
The Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Pakistani national with alleged ties to Iran with attempting to orchestrate a hit on political figures in the U.S. — reportedly including former President Donald Trump — as prosecutors tied the alleged plot to Iran’s vows to retaliate against the U.S. for the 2020 killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani.Key Facts
The Pakistani national, Asif Raza Merchant, was charged with one count of murder for hire after he allegedly sought to recruit hitmen to carry out an assassination of U.S. government officials, according to an indictment.
One of the officials is believed to be Trump, who is not named in the indictment, according to CNN and CBS News, which cite an unnamed U.S. official briefed on the matter and multiple sources familiar with the FBI’s investigation into Merchant.
Specifics of Merchant’s assassination plot detailed in the indictment do not indicate it was related to the attempted assassination of Trump last month.
Merchant met with undercover U.S. law enforcement officers posing as hitmen in June and provided them with a $5,000 advance for an assassination, which would have involved stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home, staging a protest and killing a government official, the indictment said.
