The US Justice Department announced criminal charges Wednesday against a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for allegedly trying to orchestrate the assassination of John Bolton, who served in senior national security positions during the Trump and Bush administrations.
The alleged plot was “likely in retaliation” for the January 2020 US air strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Justice Department said. After the strike, leaders of the terrorist organization vowed “revenge against Americans” for Soleimani’s death and publicly lashed out against then-President Donald Trump and other high-ranking officials in his administration.
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Pompeo was Trump’s secretary of state at the time of the airstrike that killed Soleimani. He is known as a “hawk” on Iran’s policy. A source close to Pompeo told CNN that the Justice Department told him directly last Wednesday that he was the second person in an IRGC plot to kill him.
Poursafi, who has not been arrested and remains at large, originally contacted the US-based individual — who was secretly working as an FBI informant, also known as a “confidential human source,” or CHS — and asked them to take photos of Bolton “for a book that Poursafi was writing,” according to court documents.
Later, he asked the informant if he could hire someone to “get rid of someone,” who turned out to be Bolton, and he promised to protect the CHS and the person who would kill Bolton, prosecutors said. Poursafi is also said to have said that the murder should be done “by car,” gave the CHS Bolton’s office address, and said that Bolton liked to go for walks alone.
In November 2021, the informant traveled to Washington, DC, and sent Poursafi photos of Bolton’s office and descriptions of the building. Poursafi allegedly said that the killing should happen in the building’s garage, as it was a “high traffic” area.
Poursafi has been charged with using interstate commerce facilities to carry out a murder-for-hire, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and with trying to help a transnational murder plot, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Bolton — Trump’s fourth national security adviser for a little over a year, starting in April 2018 until Trump fired him from the role in September 2019 via Twitter for “strongly” disagreeing with “many” of Bolton’s suggestions — thanked the Justice Department, FBI and Secret Service for their efforts.
“While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s rulers are liars, terrorists, and enemies of the United States,” he said. “Their radical, anti-American objectives are unchanged; their commitments are worthless, and their global threat is growing.
Bolton is a hawkish neoconservative who has pushed for regime change in Iran and supported Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the international nuclear deal with Iran.
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Former Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who served as special representative for Syria and special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS under Pompeo, said that “Pompeo was central to the Trump administration’s strategy and execution of Iran policy as” CIA director and secretary of state.
Jeffrey said that “given (the) record of Iranian assassinations in Europe and aborted ones there and here,” including the failed plot against the former Saudi foreign minister at a DC restaurant in 2011, “the threats should be taken seriously.”
Multiple current and former US officials continue to receive significant personal security due to the Iranian IRGC threats, according to a source directly familiar with all of those being protected. The security is being provided by the US government, that source said.
The source said that investigations are still going on into a number of IRGC plots, including threats against senior military leaders who could be compared to Soleimani.
The IRGC wants to kill people, but different groups within the organization are trying to carry out different plans. The source said that Bolton is only one part of the plot.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said Wednesday that the “Islamic Republic of Iran strongly warns against any action against Iranian citizens under the pretext of these ridiculous accusations and emphasizes that it reserves the right to take any action within the framework of international law to defend the rights” of the government and citizens, according to state news IRNA.
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