Pakistani national with ties to Iran charged in connection to a foiled assassination plot potentially targeting Trump

CNN —

The Justice Department has charged a Pakistani man who has alleged ties to the Iranian government with seeking to carry out political assassinations, a case that prompted the US government to increase security for former President Donald Trump and other officials, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.

FBI investigators believe that 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 City and working with a hit man to carry out the assassinations in late August or early September, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York.

Merchant was arrested on July 12 while preparing to leave the United States, prosecutors said, shortly after he met with purported hitmen who he believed would carry the murders but were actually undercover law enforcement officers. He is in federal custody.

Merchant said that he wanted to target individuals in the United States who are “hurting 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 murder-for-hire plot in the weeks before a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania nearly assassinated the former president at one of his rallies.A law enforcement official told CNN that investigators have not found evidence that Merchant had any connection to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The FBI believes it foiled Merchant’s plot before any attack, and in the weeks since his arrest he has cooperated with investigators, according to US officials. But the Iranian government’s known threats against