Iranian Operative Charged In Plot To Murder John Bolton

Shahram Poursafi is currently wanted by the FBI on charges related to a murder-for-hire plot against the former national security adviser.

An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed the country's most powerful general, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to “eliminate” him, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Shahram Poursafi, identified by U.S. officials as a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, is currently wanted by the FBI on charges related to the murder-for-hire plot.

Prosecutors say the scheme started more than a year after Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard force and an architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, was killed in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad’s international 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.”