An Iranian intelligence operative from Pakistan has been convicted by a federal jury of trying to recruit people in the United States in a plot to kill President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials.
Asif Merchant was convicted Friday of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, the Department of Justice said in a news release. He faces up to life in prison.
Targets in the 2024 plot included Trump, who was seeking a second term in the presidential election. Prosecutors said other potential targets included then-President Joe Biden and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who was challenging Trump for the Republican nomination.
"This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in the release. "The Department of Justice will remain ever-vigilant to protect Americans, prosecute terrorists, and halt acts of terrorism before they happen."
Prosecutors said the plot was hatched by Iran in retaliation for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, in Trump's first term.
Merchant admitted at trial that the Revolutionary Guard sent him to the U.S. to arrange political assassinations and steal documents, but law enforcement foiled the plot before any attack could be carried out.
Merchant arrived in the U.S. in April 2024 and met with purported hit men in June, who were undercover U.S. law enforcement officers in New York. He was arrested before leaving the country in July 2024.
Prosecutors said Merchant began working for the Revolutionary Guard in late 2022 or early 2023, when he received training in intelligence tradecraft, including countersurveillance.
Later in 2023, he was sent to the U.S. to look for potential recruits. Merchant testified that he knew the Guard was a designated terrorist organization. During this period, Merchant repeatedly traveled to Iran to meet with his Guard handler.
Merchant testified that in 2024 he was sent back to the U.S. with a new mission to recruit hit men to arrange the murder of one of three specific U.S. officials or politicians, prosecutors said. Merchant admitted that he had been tasked by the Guard to kill a U.S. government official or politician to avenge Soleimani's death.
Merchant contacted an acquaintance in New York whom he believed could help him carry out the plan. That person instead reported Merchant's conduct to law enforcement and became a confidential source.
In early June 2024, Merchant met the confidential source in New York and explained his assassination plot. Merchant began planning potential assassination scenarios and quizzed the source on how he would kill a target. Merchant told the source that there would be "security all around" the person.
Merchant said the assassination would occur after he left the U.S. and that he would communicate with the source from overseas using code words.
The source asked whether Merchant had spoken with the unidentified "party" back home with whom he was working. Merchant responded that he had and that the party told him to "finalize" the plan and leave the U.S. Merchant later testified that the party was his Guard handler.
In mid-June 2024, Merchant met with the purported hit men, who were undercover U.S. law enforcement officers in New York. Merchant told them he was seeking three services: stealing documents, staging protests at political rallies and killing a "political person" in the U.S.
Merchant said the hit men would receive instructions on who to kill after he had left the U.S. Targets could include Trump, Biden, and Haley, and Merchant said he understood that Trump would likely be the target.
Merchant later made flight arrangements and planned to leave the U.S. on July 12, 2024. On that day, law enforcement agents arrested him before he could leave the country.
"In 2024, the FBI came to my front door to tell me the Iranian regime had put a hit on my life — anytime, anywhere," Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Trump's first term, wrote Saturday on X. "Anyone who claims the Iranian regime isn't a danger to America is ignoring how far its tentacles spread and is willfully ignorant about how far it will go to threaten Americans even in our own country."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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