Washington, August 11 (RHC)-- The U.S. Justice Department has charged an Iranian citizen with plotting to murder President Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton.   Federal prosecutors claim that Shahram Poursafi offered to pay a hitman $300,000 last November to assassinate Bolton in Washington, D.C., or Maryland.  

The man Poursafi allegedly tried to hire was in fact an FBI informant.  Federal agents say Poursafi is a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who sought revenge for the Trump administration’s assassination of a top Iranian commander in Baghdad in January 2020. This is Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen.

Matthew Olsen told reporters: “This assassination plot was undertaken in apparent retaliation for the January 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani.  We face a rising threat from authoritarian regimes who seek to reach beyond their own borders to commit acts of repression, including inside the United States."