According to an indictment unsealed Tuesday by the Department of Justice, a Pakistani national with alleged ties to the Iranian government was charged with one count of Murder for Hire as part of a political assassination plot that targeted former President Donald Trump and other current and former government officials.
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.
The FBI was investigating Merchant and his alleged murder-for-hire plot for approximately 20 weeks before Donald Trump was shot along with three others, one fatally, in Butler, Pennsylvania. However, federal officials have said that they have found no evidence linking Merchant to that attempted assassination. The FBI and DOJ believe that they were able to prevent any plan made by Merchant from being executed. They also say that Merchant is cooperating with FBI investigators. However, they also are taking into consideration known Iranian threats against Trump and have notified the Secret Service, which has increased their security for the GOP presidential nominee.
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The assassination plots exposed in the unsealed indictment are part of a growing list of threats made by Iran to kill Trump and others, according to unnamed national security officials. The U.S. government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran will possibly try to retaliate against the United States for the 2020 drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a top general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by trying to kill Trump or his former advisers.
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.”
According to DOJ prosecutors, while Merchant is a Pakistani national, he did travel to Iran and also has family living there as well. When Merchant arrived in New York in April of 2024, his goal was to hire an killer who would carry out assassinations against Trump and other officials in the U.S.. Merchant made contact with what he thought was a hitman who would assist him in his plot. However, that individual then contacted the FBI and became a confidential informant and assisted the Bureau in their investigation.
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 then 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.
The indictment mentioned that Merchant was trying to organize a large group of at least 25 people with different responsibilities or missions.
MERCHANT then explained that his plot involved three different criminal schemes: (1) stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home; (2) planning a 6 protest; and (3) killing a politician or government official. MERCHANT stated that the victims would be “targeted here,” meaning in the United States. He also stated that the “people who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world. These are not normal people.” Specifically, MERCHANT requested men who could do the killing, approximately twenty-five people who could perform a protest as a distraction after the murder occurred, and a woman to do “reconnaissance.” MERCHANT told the CS that these individuals needed to be trusted. MERCHANT also stated that he wanted the hitmen to procure him an untraceable phone so they could communicate securely.
Merchant was planning on leaving the country before the attacks were to have been executed but was arrested before he was able to do so.
