A trial seeks to tie Iranian paramilitary to alleged assassination plot in US

NEW YORK– As the United States wages an expanding war in Iran, U.S. prosecutors say Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was involved in a foiled 2024 assassination plot that considered then-candidate Donald Trump as a possible target.

The alleged scheme is at the center of a criminal trial that began last week in a New York federal court, days before the fighting in the Middle East now looms in the background.

“This trial is happening in interesting times,” Judge Eric Komitee told attorneys this week in the case of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national accused of trying to hire hitmen to kill a U.S. politician. Merchant did not name a target but searched online for Trump’s gathering places, according to prosecutors, who presented evidence Tuesday that Merchant’s laptop contained photos of Trump and then-President Joe Biden at a time when they were rivals for the presidency.

An FBI agent testified Tuesday that Merchant told him he had a Revolutionary Guard “handler” and that he believed that manager would help finance the plan. Merchant’s attorney suggested the purported statements may not be accurate.

Merchant, 47, has pleaded not guilty to attempted terrorism and other charges. His lawyers say prosecutors are trying to shoehorn the evidence into a narrative that doesn’t add up.

Merchant has children in Iran and has traveled there. His lawyers described his trips as religious pilgrimages and time spent with family. But federal authorities have long suggested he had ties to Iran’s theocratic government.

When Merchant was indicted in 2024, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said the case was “straight out of the Iranian regime’s playbook.” Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland described it as an example of Iran’s “murderous plot against Americans.”

In court on Tuesday, an FBI agent opened a window – albeit a narrow and limited one – into the government base to point the finger at Tehran.

This stems from what Merchant allegedly told agents during an interview in July 2024. The session was not recorded and the agents’ report on it is sealed. Only a few questions about it were allowed in court.

According to agent Jacqueline Smith, Merchant said one of his cousins ​​introduced him to a Revolutionary Guard guard at one point in Iran. Formerly called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the force played an important role in Iran under the leadership of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S.-Israeli attack over the weekend. The United States considers the Revolutionary Guards a “foreign terrorist organization.”

Merchant said he expected his master to repay the $5,000 Merchant received from his cousin and gave to the supposed hitmen, who were actually undercover FBI agents, Smith told jurors. She said Merchant also passed on some advice from the manager: “If he noticed he was being watched, he should act normally.”

Defense attorney Avraham Moskowitz stressed that the interview was not recorded and he described the officers’ report as “someone’s impression of what was said.”

“I disagree with that characterization,” Smith said, while acknowledging that the sealed document was not a verbatim record.

The interview was what’s known as a deliberation session, typically a time when defendants or suspects and their attorneys explore the possibility of cooperating with authorities. Moskowitz noted, even though jurors were not in the room, that the remarks can produce a mix of things “that may be true and other things said that may not be true.”

While only getting a glimpse of that interview, jurors saw and heard recordings of Merchant interacting with undercover FBI agents and with an acquaintance who reported him to the agency in the first place.

In a June 2024 recording that was played in court this week, Merchant told undercover agents that he and his associates in Pakistan were looking for people to steal documents, provoke protests at political events, “and the last thing is: maybe you can, say, kill someone.”

“The third thing you want, it could be a big problem,” one of the agents observed. He raised the possibility that “you wanted someone’s wife killed?”

“No, no… maybe it’s a political person, maybe another person,” said Merchant, who later explained that he didn’t yet know exactly who.

“Wow,” the agent said, adding, “It’s going to be expensive.”

About a week later, Merchant was recorded meeting the agents at a Manhattan rooftop restaurant and then, in a nearby car, handing them $5,000 in rolled-up, rubber-banded $100 bills.

Merchant was arrested in Texas on July 12, 2024, while packing to return to Pakistan, authorities said in court documents.

A day after Merchant’s arrest, a Pennsylvania man made an attempt on Trump’s life during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. Officials said it appeared the shooter acted alone, but that they were monitoring a threat to Trump’s life from Iran, a claim the Islamic Republic called “unsubstantiated and malicious.”

The president alluded to alleged Iranian plots on Sunday when discussing Khamenei’s death.

“I had him before he had me,” Trump told ABC News.