A U.S. federal court on Friday convicted 47-year-old Pakistani national Asif Merchant of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump and other senior American officials.
According to prosecutors, Merchant was recruited by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to carry out assassinations targeting several prominent U.S. political figures, including former President Joe Biden and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
Merchant was arrested on July 12, 2024, one day before the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Thomas Karkus attempted to assassinate Trump. During that attack, the gunman fired toward the stage and grazed the president’s ear. One rally attendee was killed in the incident.
Testifying in court, FBI agent Jacqueline Smith said Merchant told her that the shooting was connected to the same operation he had been sent to carry out in the United States.
Merchant also told the jury that the IRGC had sent him on a mission to kill American politicians, including by attending a Republican campaign rally as part of the plot. He said the plan was intended as revenge for the 2020 killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, during Trump’s first term in office.
Merchant further testified that members of the Revolutionary Guards threatened his family, saying he had no choice but to comply. “My family was threatened," he told the court. “I had no other options."
He was convicted on multiple charges, including murder-for-hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, and now faces the possibility of life imprisonment.