News Brief
Trump Assassination Bid Foiled: FBI Arrests Pakistani National For Plotting To Kill The Former US President
Former US President Donald Trump
A Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, has been charged in a plot to assassinate Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced charges against Asif Merchant on Tuesday (6 August), hinting that Trump was the target without explicitly naming him.
"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," he said.
Trump, as the then US President, ordered the killing of Soleimani in 2020, indicating he was likely the target of the plot.
Court documents suggest there may have been additional intended victims, as multiple targets were mentioned.
Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) Chief Christopher Wray said, "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."
The alleged plotter, who is also known as Asif Raza Merchant, told officials that he has two wives, one each in Pakistan and in Iran, as well as children in both countries.
According to the court papers, the plot involved multiple elements: stealing documents or USB drives from a target's home; planning protests, and killing a politician or government official.
Merchant devised code names for each plot element: "tee-shirt" for protests, "flannel shirt" for stealing documents, "fleece jacket" for the assassination, and "yarn-dye" for their meetings.
The plot failed because Merchant tried to recruit FBI agents for the assassination attempt.
"Fortunately, the assassins Merchant tried to hire were undercover FBI agents," said Christie Curtis, the Acting Assistant Director of the New York FBI Field Office.
However, officials stated there appears to be no connection between Merchant's plot and the prior attempt, which was reportedly carried out by a lone wolf, a person unaffiliated with any group or organization.
Merchant was arrested on 12 July while preparing to board a flight out of the country.
According to court documents, Merchant arrived in the US in April from Pakistan after spending time in Iran.
He reached out to someone he believed could assist him, who then reported him to law enforcement and became a confidential source.
In mid-June, Merchant met with individuals he believed to be hitmen, who were actually undercover US law enforcement officers (UCs) in New York.
He asked them to steal documents, organise protests at political rallies, and assassinate a "political person".
Merchant informed the undercover officers that the plot should be executed after he left the country, and they would be told the target's identity in either the last week of August or the first week of September.
Merchant received $5,000 from overseas and made a down payment to the undercover agents.
As per the court documents, after receiving the money, one of the agents said, "Now we know we're going forward. We're doing this," to which Merchant replied, "Yes, absolutely."
