Justice Department charges Iranian man with plotting to kill John Bolton

Prosecutors say member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps called for killing of former national security adviser in retaliation for the killing of a senior Iranian official.

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department on Wednesday charged a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with 'planning to assassinate John R. Bolton, who served as President Donald J. Trump's national security adviser, as payback for the murder of a senior Iranian official.

The charging document, filed in federal court, looked like the synopsis of an international spy novel - but the scheme, if carried out, would have resulted in the murder of a prominent American critic of the Tehran government, and the disclosure of the plot further shook an already fragile relationship between the s United States and Iran at a critical moment in the negotiations on the n of Tehran. nuclear program.

The plan was ultimately foiled by a confidential federal informant posing as a potential assassin. But court documents suggested a chilling level of sophistication in the planning, if not the execution: At one point, an agent in Tehran provided details of Mr. Bolton's movements that could not have been known to outsiders. public sources.

The accused conspirator, Shahram Poursafi, 45, is not in custody and remains at large, believed to be in Iran. Footage claiming to be Mr Poursafi shows a man sporting fashionable glasses, wearing Revolutionary Guard fatigues or dressed in smart Western-style clothing. now one point is indisputable: Iran's leaders are liars, terrorists and enemies of the United States,” Bolton said in a statement released by his office after the accusations became public. “Their radical and anti-American goals are unchanged; their commitments are worthless; and their global threat is growing.

Nasser Kanaani, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, accused US officials of making "baseless accusations" without "credible evidence or documents" in comments posted on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. He said Tehran was ready to defend itself in international courts.

US officials told a much different story. In October 2021, prosecutors said Mr. Poursafi, a Revolutionary Guard who lives in Tehran, contacted an anonymous US resident online with a seemingly innocent request: Would the person be willing to find Mr. Bolton and to take a few photos of him for a book he was writing?

It was a ruse, prosecutors said. Mr Poursafi was working on behalf of his government to recruit a network to assassinate Mr Bolton, likely in retaliation for the US military's January 2020 killing of Qassim Suleimani, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, a branch of the Iranian military which is a power base for the country's ruling military and political elites, officials said in the court filing.

Some senior Iranian officials, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi have in the past openly vowed to avenge Mr Suleimani by killing US officials – demanding that US officials responsible for his death be brought to justice “ghesas”, or “an eye for an eye”. /p>

"Iran has a history of plotting to assassinate individuals in the United States whom it considers a threat," said Larissa L. Knapp, deputy executive director of the branch of the s F.B.I. National Security, which worked on the case with the Justice Department and Secret Service.

In November, Mr. Poursafi had been introduced to several other Americans on an encrypted messaging platform, and made an astonishing offer to one of them, the person who turned out to be the informant: he would pay $250,000 to "eliminate" Mr. Bolton, who had