Republicans Press FBI on Iranian Assassination Plot

House Republicans are demanding answers from the FBI regarding a Pakistani national with ties to Iran who was arrested in July over a failed plot to assassinate a politician or U.S. government officials on U.S. soil, possibly including former President Donald Trump.

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and August Pfluger, R-Texas, chair of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, wrote a letter Friday to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting additional information regarding the arrest of Asif Merchant, 46, on a charge of murder for hire. Merchant is being held in federal custody in New York.

Although court documents did not name potential victims and said Merchant allegedly planned to disclose the targets after he left the country, multiple media outlets reported that Trump was a possible target. Iran has vowed to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp's Quds Force, in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad ordered by Trump on Jan. 3, 2020.

The case against Merchant, which is unrelated to the assassination attempt against Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, comes as Iran is now believed to be targeting the campaigns of Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris with cyberattacks and hacking operations, and with the Islamic Regime allegedly helping to finance anti-Israel protests on U.S. college campuses.

"Merchant's foiled plot follows another scheme when an Iranian national and member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force orchestrated the attempted assassination of John Bolton, the former U.S. National Security Adviser," the lawmakers wrote.

"Subsequently, it was revealed that Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State, was a second target of the same plot. Credible threats by Iran have continued to persist against former Secretary Pompeo, as well as his former top aide, Brian Hook, who served as special representative for Iran during the Trump administration.

"These plots also include Iran's efforts to silence those who publicly criticize the regime's human rights abuses."

Green and Pfluger also requested that the FBI provide a status update briefing to discuss its investigation of Merchant and its "broader work to address threats posed by Iran to U.S. homeland security and its brazen targeting of U.S. persons, including former President Trump and former and current U.S. government officials" by Aug. 30.

"We have serious concerns about the inadequate, and lack of, actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration to impose consequences on the Iranian regime, including efforts to protect our national security and American citizens from foreign threats," Green and Pfluger wrote.

Newsmax reached out to the FBI for comment.