Iranian operative charged in plot to murder ex-Trump official Bolton
WASHINGTON— An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed the country’s most powerful general, offering $300,000 to “eliminate” the Trump administration official, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
Shahram Poursafi, identified by U.S. officials as a member of Iran’s Revolutionary
Guard, is wanted by the FBI on charges related to the murder-for-hire plot.
Prosecutors say the scheme unfolded more than a year after Qassem Soleimani, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and an architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, was killed in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad’s airport in January 2020. After the strike, Bolton, who by then had left his White House post, tweeted, “Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.”
In the fall of 2021, Poursafi, an Iranian citizen who officials say has never visited the U.S., offered $300,000 to someone he was corresponding with in the U.S. if the person would hire someone to “eliminate” Bolton, according to an FBI affidavit.
Poursafi provided the person, who was actually an FBI informant, with Bolton’s office address, including the name and contact information of someone who worked in the office, and took screenshots of surveillance photographs of Bolton’s office, the affidavit says.
“This was not an idle threat,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said in a statement.
In his own statement, Bolton thanked the FBI and Justice Department for their work in developing the case and the Secret Service for providing protection.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The unsealing of the complaint comes two days after negotiators seeking to revive the Iran nuclear accord in Vienna closed on a “final text” of an agreement, with parties now consulting in their capitals on whether to agree to it.
The 2015 deal granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for tight curbs on its atomic program. Since the U.S. withdrew from the agreement under President Donald Trump, Iran has sped up its nuclear enrichment program. Bolton has been among the most hawkish critics of the deal and efforts by the Biden administration to rejoin it.