US offers $20m to help catch Iranian accused in plot to kill John Bolton
The US is offering a $20m reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who is accused of plotting to assassinate former US national security advisor John Bolton.
The US State Department says that between 2021-2022, Poursafi was working on behalf of the IRGC's Quds Force to hire criminals to murder Bolton in Washington DC and Maryland. Poursafi is said to have been offering $300,000 for the job.
"Poursafi told the potential assassin - who actually became a confidential source for US investigators - that once he completed the Bolton murder, he would have a second assassination job for him," the administration statement reads.
Poursafi's purported scheme was reportedly an attempt to take revenge for the killing of Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a drone strike in Iraq on the orders of the Donald Trump administration in 2020.
The IRGC has been designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organization.
The US Treasury Department has named Poursafi a "specially designated global terrorist", which means that all of his property and interests in property are blocked and American citizens are forbidden from engaging in any transactions with him.
Court documents show that Poursafi met a US resident, who he had previously met online, and asked the person to take photos of Bolton for a book he claimed to be writing. Poursafi was then told he would be introduced to another person who could do the job for $5,000-$10,000.
Poursafi is reported to have offered this other person $250,000 for the assassination, which was then renegotiated to $300,000, and then added that if the job was successful, there was another target that would bring a $1m payment.
Poursafi is no longer in the US, according to court documents.
Bolton told USA Today, "This is exactly the right thing to do from a law enforcement point of view."
“I think it really is threatening an act of war and I think the Biden administration should treat it as such, not just pursue it from a law enforcement perspective but pursue it from a national security perspective too.”
When Bolton first learned of the plot in 2022, he was asked on CNN what went through his mind.
"Well, I was embarrassed at the low price," Bolton responded. "I would have thought it would have been higher. But I guess maybe it was the exchange rate problem or something."
Bolton left his post as national security advisor by the time of the strike against Soleimani, but it was approved in 2019 by President Trump while Bolton was still in his post.
The strike was not approved by Congress and was carried out on the orders of the US president, which the administration said was legal according to the US Constitution and the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq.
An arrest warrant for Trump was issued in Iran after the killing.
Earlier this week a Trump campaign spokesperson said that top US intelligence officials had briefed Republican presidential hopeful Trump about threats from Iran to assassinate him.
"President Trump was briefed earlier today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States," spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung went on to say that "coordinated attacks" have become heightened in recent months.
The Iranian mission to the US has dismissed the allegations as "unsubstantiated and malicious", according to Iranian state media.
Iran has also been accused of attempting to interfere in the US election, in particular targeting the Trump campaign. The FBI launched an investigation months earlier after people associated with both the Trump and Biden campaigns had been targets for "phishing" schemes.
Then this week, federal prosecutors charged three Iranian hackers who are accused of trying to "target and compromise the accounts of current and former US government officials, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals associated with US political campaigns".
Trump has faced two assassination plots this year, neither of which have been linked to Iran.
The first attempt was on 13 July in Pennsylvania during a rally where a shooter, Thomas Mathew Crooks, 20, fired off eight rounds hitting Trump on his right ear. Trump survived the attempt with minor injuries but one audience member was killed and two others were critically injured.
Crooks was subsequently shot and killed by the US Secret Service.
The second plot took place on 15 September at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where a man, Ryan Routh, 58, had camped out for hours with a rifle waiting for a shot at Trump.
Routh was initially hit with gun charges but earlier this week a grand jury in Miami charged Routh with attempting to kill former President Trump.