A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard was charged in a plot to murder former national security adviser John Bolton, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Shahram Poursafi, 45, of Tehran, is accused of attempting to arrange Bolton’s assassination likely in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Poursafi, who also goes by Mehdi Rezayi, attempted to pay $300,000 to individuals in the United States to carry out the murder in Washington, D.C., or Maryland, the Justice Department said.
“The Justice Department has the solemn duty to defend our citizens from hostile governments who seek to hurt or kill them,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “This is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on U.S. soil and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts.”
Poursafi, who remains at large, was charged with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot.
In a statement, Bolton thanked U.S. authorities for tracking the threat and bringing criminal charges.
“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 added. “Their radical, anti-American objectives are unchanged; their commitments are worthless; and their global threat is growing.”
The charges were brought more than 2 1/2 years after the U.S. killed Soleimani in an airstrike near Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani’s secretive Quds Force was a division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, widely believed to support many terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah.
Iran has called the killing a “callous terrorist act” and sanctioned several current and former U.S. officials in response.
In April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged to Congress that there were threats against former U.S. officials.
Asked whether the Revolutionary Guard is “actively trying to murder former senior officials of the United States,” Blinken said: “I’m not sure what I can say in an open setting, but let me say generically, that there is an ongoing threat against American officials, both present and past.”
“We are making sure, and we will make sure, for as long as it takes that we’re protecting our people, present and former, if they’re under threat,” Blinken added during the Senate Foreign Relations hearing.
Iran announced sanctions against roughly 50 Americans in January, days after the second anniversary of Soleimani’s killing. The sanctions were brought against Bolton, former President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others, for what Iran said was the “role they played in the terrorist act of the United States against Martyr General Ghasem Soleimani and his companions.”
“Make no mistake: the United States of America will protect and defend its citizens,” national security advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement at the time. “As Americans, we have our disagreements on politics. We have our disagreements on Iran policy. But we are united in our resolve against threats and provocations. We are united in the defense of our people.”
