Suspected of planning the assassination of Trump, the Pakistani is arrested in the US

The Department of Justice has charged a Pakistani, suspected of ties to the Iranian government, for attempting to commit political assassination against former President Donald Trump.

FBI investigators believe Trump and other current and former US government officials were the intended targets of the plot, a US official briefed on the matter said.

Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of traveling to New York and planning with an assassin to carry out the assassination in late August or early September, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn

He was arrested on July 12 as he was about to leave the United States, shortly after he met with alleged hitmen who he believed would carry out the murders, but were actually undercover officers.

The suspect is currently being held in custody.

Merchant said he was targeting individuals in the United States who are "harming Pakistan and the world, (the Muslim world)," according to court documents, adding that "these are not just normal people."

The FBI investigated the alleged international assassination plot in the weeks before a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man attempted to kill the former president at one of his rallies.

An official told CNN that investigators have found no evidence that Merchant had anything to do with the Butler shooting of Trump.

The FBI believes it managed to prevent Merchant's assassination, and in the weeks since his arrest, he has cooperated with investigators, according to US officials. But the Iranian government's known threats against Trump prompted the FBI to turn over intelligence to the US Secret Service, which increased security protection for the former president, officials said.

As part of the plot, prosecutors say, Merchant was looking for people to carry out the assassinations, specifically a woman to do "reconnaissance" and about 25 people "who could make a protest as a distraction, to pave the way for the murder."

The plot uncovered by US prosecutors adds to a growing list of detailed Iranian plans to kill Trump, according to national security officials.

The US government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran may seek revenge for a 2020 US drone strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani, a senior general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) trying to kill Trump or his former advisers.

"We have not received any report on this matter from the US government," a spokesman for Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations told CNN when asked about the Justice Department's allegations.

"However, it is clear that the modus operandi in question contradicts the Iranian government's policy of legally pursuing the killer of General Soleimani."

US prosecutors have charged other individuals with similar assassination attempts in the past, including charges filed in 2022 against a 45-year-old Iranian national and IRGC member who allegedly tried to pay $300,000 for an individual in the US to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton. In that case, prosecutors allege the plot was "likely revenge" for Soleimani's death.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that the U.S. "will not tolerate efforts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America's national security."

The alleged assassination

The suspect arrived in New York City in April and intended to hire an assassin to carry out assassinations against officials on US soil. Although Merchant is a Pakistani citizen, prosecutors say he spent time in Iran and has family there.

Once in the United States, Merchant allegedly contacted someone he believed would assist him in the hit-and-run plot. That person, however, contacted the FBI and began working for investigators as a confidential source.

The dealer met with the anonymous person in early June, prosecutors say, and said he wanted to find people in New York to do three things: steal documents or USB drives from a victim's home, plan protests at political rallies and to carry out the assassinations.