US offers $20M for Iranian in plot targeting Trump’s ex-national security advisor John Bolton

The U.S. State Department is offering up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest of a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for his alleged involvement in a murder-for-hire plot targeting former President Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton.

Shahram Poursafi, is a uniformed member of the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and is believed to be working on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) in the murder-for-hire plot, the State Department said. 

Poursafi allegedly conspired with “criminal elements” within the U.S. to murder Bolton in Washington, D.C., between October 2021 and April 2022 in exchange for $300,000, according to the State Department. 

The alleged assassination plot targeting Bolton took place after he served as Trump’s national security advisor between 2018 and 2019. 

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L-R: Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton and IRGC member Shahram Poursafi.  (Reuters; FBI)

Poursafi is alleged to have provided “material support and resources” to facilitate the attempted killing and told the would-be assassin that he had a second assassination job for him after he murdered Bolton, the State Department said. The potential assassin later became a confidential source for U.S. investigators. 

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FILE: Former National Security Advisor John Bolton speaks at a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint against Poursafi on Aug. 5, 2022. The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Poursafi as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on June 1, 2023. This means that any of Poursafi’s property or interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. citizens are forbidden from doing business with him. 

If convicted, Poursafi faces over a decade in prison and a half a million-dollar fine. He remains at large abroad. 

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian walks on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 24, 2024.  (Reuters/Caitlin Ochs)

The reward offer comes just days after former President Trump was briefed about “real and specific threats” from Iran to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate, his campaign said.

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Both incidents come as world leaders meet this week for the U.N. General Assembly. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that Iran wants “to play an effective and constructive role” in world affairs.