Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also a target in an alleged Iranian assassination plot targeting former national security adviser John Bolton, according to a report.
A source close to Pompeo told Yahoo News that the Justice Department reached out to give him advance notice that he was the other high-ranking Trump official mentioned in charges against Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unsealed on Wednesday.
“He is the one most at risk because of his frequent travel and because of his potential run in 2024,” the source told the news outlet.
The Justice Department declined to comment, according to the report. If true, Pompeo is mentioned twice in the affidavit.
MEMBER OF IRANIAN TERROR GROUP PLOTTED TO ASSASSINATE JOHN BOLTON: DOJ
“On or about the same day, POURSAFI asked if the [confidential human subject] could hire someone for ‘them’ for $200,000 in order to ‘eliminate someone.’ POURSAFI also said that he had a second job for $1 million,” the affidavit says.
“The CHS asked POURSAFI if there was another individual who had done worse to Iran and whom they should target instead, such as another named former high-ranking United States Government official from the Trump Administration. POURRSAFI told the CHS that targeting that official was dangerous because there were a lot of people around him/her, but that his/her time would come. POURSAFI wanted the CHS to focus on the first job and then there would be other jobs,” it further states.
Pompeo was apparently seen as a higher-value target to the Iranian government given the offered sum of $1 million to assassinate him when compared to the $200,000 originally offered to assassinate Bolton. That amount was later bumped up to $300,000, per the court documents.
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The plot was likely meant to be retaliation for the successful assassination of the IRGC’s Quds Force leader, Qassem Soleimani, in January 2020.
Poursafi was charged with the “use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and with providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot.” The Justice Department said he ultimately attempted to pay U.S.-based individuals $300,000 to carry out the murder of Bolton in either Washington, D.C., or Maryland.
