By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
THE FBI and US Attorney General Merrick Garland have a story to tell us about a “Pakistani national (pictured above) with purported ties to Iran who was arrested last month on charges that he plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump and multiple other public officials”. American ABC reported that criminal complaint was unsealed this month in the Brooklyn federal court.
The New York courts are where the Trump civil “business fraud” trial was held. Let’s just say it could be a really tough gig for the Pakistani national, because not even the former president was beyond the righteous reach of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who smirked gleefully when her court “got Trump” as she promised to do during her election campaign.
We should also note that the criminal complaint does not mention Trump by name, according to “multiple sources familiar with the case” who spoke to ABC News, but “one of the intended targets of the alleged plot was Trump”. “Other possible targets included government officials from both sides of the aisle, the sources said.” We’re so relieved that the terrorist wasn’t partisan!
The ABC report continues with the FBI story: “After spending time in Iran, Asif Merchant flew from Pakistan to the US to recruit hit men to carry out the alleged plot, according to a detention memo. The person he contacted was a confidential informant working with the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.”
So back in April our alleged terrorist from Pakistan jets in to the US then quite casually goes out looking for a hit man, then bingo, he hits on an FBI informant. You couldn’t make this stuff up! The story goes that Merchant paid his hit man $5000 as an advance on the assassinations.
As reported by ABC the court complaint alleged: “Specifically, Merchant requested men who could do the killing, approximately 25 people who could perform a protest as a distraction after the murder occurred, and a woman to do ‘reconnaissance.’” Sounds like our Pakistani suspect would have had quite a bill to pay at the end of the job. But with US$5k up front, what hit man worth his salt would not be incentivised to follow through?
Two months after the initial contact with the informant, our Mr Merchant, 46, is charged with murder for hire and was arrested on July 12, incredibly and coincidentally one day prior Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Thomas Crooks apparently just missed a headshot on the former president.
But the FBI says there are no known links between Merchant and Crooks. Well that’s a blow to what might have been our “now I get it, great work FBI!” moment. Crooks apparently was just coincidentally plotting to do a “lone gunman” job on Trump while Merchant was about to come at him from another angle.
“For years, the Justice Department has been working aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and unrelenting efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian General Soleimani,” the incredibly brave but terribly persecuted Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens, and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”
By golly, we at Cairns News can only tip our hats to the incredible work of the US Department of Justice and the FBI in cutting off at the pass what might have been a doubly dangerous event for the former president and who knows how many other US officials!
It’s just unfortunate that all the incredibly frustrating facts around the Trump shooting now combined with two assassination plots has muddied the waters to such an incalculable level that we almost give up. But no doubt our guys at the FBI will unravel it all and shed light and truth and justice on this terrible confluence of evil.
In a statement the acting Assistant Director Christie Curtis of the FBI New York Field Office is already helping us to see through the fog: “Fortunately, the assassins Merchant allegedly tried to hire were undercover FBI Agents,” he said.
“This case underscores the dedication and formidable efforts of our agents, analysts and prosecutors in New York, Houston, and Dallas. Their success in neutralizing this threat not only prevented a tragic outcome but also reaffirms the FBI’s commitment to protecting our nation and its citizens from both domestic and international threats.”
Officials told ABC news that “a final target had not been selected by the time Merchant made arrangements to fly out of the US.”
They also told the ABC they had “found no link between foreign operatives and Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old shot and killed after he tried to assassinate Trump from a rooftop near the stage, but the arrest may help explain some last-minute adjustments to rally security.”
“We were initially told that there was no Secret Service snipers coming but that was shifted either Thursday or Friday to indicate that there were,” Pat Young, head of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, told ABC News. “We had been told that this is the first time that a non-sitting president had been allocated Secret Service snipers. So that threw up some alarm bells for some of our guys that — why the sudden shift — from one stance to the other?”