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A criminal complaint unsealed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday revealed details of a Pakistani national’s plot to assassinate President Donald Trump.
Asif Merchant, 46, a Pakistani national with connections to Iran, was charged in Brooklyn, New York, with murder-for-hire charges for his role in an alleged scheme to assassinate a politician or U.S. government official in the United States.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the DOJ had been working for years to “aggressively counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani.”
Soleimani was killed in 2020 during the Trump administration. Iranian leaders have long called for revenge.
Merchant came to the United States in April and reached out to a person he thought could help him with the scheme, but the person reported his plans to law enforcement and began working as a confidential source (CS).
According to the complaint, the CS said that Merchant was not planning a one-time attempt for the assassination, but rather an ongoing scheme. Additionally, he discussed stealing documents and USB drives and orchestrating protests.
Merchant said that he would be targeting individuals who sought to harm Pakistan and Muslims, which he described as “not normal people.”
FBI special agent Anthony Cipriano indicated in his affidavit that he did not believe that Merchant was acting alone.
“In my training and experience, individuals engaged in plots originating overseas to commit acts of violence in the United States often obscure the sponsor or broader purpose of the plot.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray said the scheme was “straight out of the Iranian playbook.”
The CS told law enforcement that Merchant appeared friendly to Iran and disclosed that the plot was “halal,” which means “permitted” in Arabic.
Merchant presented various hypothetical scenarios for the assassination with drawings on a napkin, according to the DOJ. He planned to leave the country before the scheme was carried out and would only communicate via code words from overseas.
He met with several “hitmen” who were actually law enforcement officers and told them he would provide instructions for the assassination toward the end of August or the beginning of September.
Merchant provided an advanced payment of $5,000 to the alleged hitmen on June 21, when he confirmed that, “Yes, absolutely” the plot would be executed.
He was arrested on July 12 in Texas after he scheduled a flight out of the country and was spotted carrying luggage to a vehicle. Law enforcement officers later found handwritten code words that Merchant intended to use to communicate with the hitmen.
Merchant has claimed to have wives and children in his home country of Pakistan and Iran. He has regularly traveled to Syria, Iraq and Iran, according to the DOJ.
