Pakistani national with Iran-links who may have been hired assassin targeting Donald Trump arrested and charged with Murder for Hire Plot in New York
Pakistani national with ties to Iran was charged with murder-for-hire as part of
plot to assassinate a U.S. politician or government official in response to the Trump administration's 2020
killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday.
Asif Raza Merchant, 46, arrived in the U.S. around April and contacted a person he believed could help him carry out the scheme, the Department of Justice alleged. However, that person told law enforcement about Merchant's plans and became a confidential source.
The charges, filed in a Brooklyn, New York federal courthouse in July, were revealed weeks after an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania political rally.
Merchant allegedly met with the source in New York in early June and said the assassination plan would be ongoing, rather than just a one-time opportunity.
Pakistani national charged with alleged plot to assassinate Trump, other officials
A Pakistani national with purported ties to Iran was arrested last month on charges he plotted to assassinate former President
Donald Trump and multiple other public officials, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.
While the criminal complaint does not mention Trump by name, multiple sources familiar with the case told ABC News one of the intended targets of the alleged plot was Trump.
After spending time in Iran, Asif Merchant flew from Pakistan to the U.S. to recruit hitmen to carry out the alleged plot, according to a detention memo. The person he contacted was a confidential informant working with the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.
Merchant, 46, is charged with murder for hire.
Asif was arrested July 12, one day prior Trump's July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear.
"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 Soleimani," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran's lethal plotting against American citizens, and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America's national security."
Investigators have said they've found no link between foreign operatives and Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old shot and killed after he tried to assassinate Trump from a rooftop near the stage, but the arrest may help explain some last-minute adjustments to rally security.
"We were initially told that there was no Secret Service snipers coming but that was shifted either Thursday or Friday to indicate that there were," Pat Young, head of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, told ABC News. "We had been told that this is the first time that a non-sitting president had been allocated Secret Service snipers. So that threw up some alarm bells for some of our guys that -- why the sudden shift -- from one stance to the other?"
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