(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The trial of the man accused of working for Iran in an assassination plot against Donald Trump began last week, and new details are pouring out about the FBI’s role in the case.
The defendant in the case, Pakistani national Asif Merchant, is accused of attempting to hire two undercover FBI agents as “hitmen” to target politicians, including potentially Trump. Merchant was introduced to the two agents by an FBI informant, who knew him since 2017. The informant reportedly worked for the U.S. Army as a linguist in Afghanistan before becoming a government spy.
Last week, one of the undercover agents testified. The agent said that after the FBI informant introduced him to Merchant, they had a meeting in a strip club. There, the agents bought Merchant “exotic dancers” as he “cryptically explained” his plan, according to the New York Times.
Undercover FBI agents bought strippers for the alleged Iran-backed operative, per NYT. https://t.co/3vxnVRGo4h pic.twitter.com/ZXLHLVoTRL
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) March 2, 2026
The Times reported Monday that Merchant appeared nervous at the strip club, and told the agents the targets would be given to him “in person” in Pakistan. Merchant was arrested July 12, 2024—the day before Trump was shot at Butler—as he was attempting to leave the U.S.
Merchant eventually scrounged up $5,000 as a down payment for the undercover agents. Instead of getting the money himself, Merchant acquired the cash in a roundabout way: his cousin from overseas called the FBI informant to say that the money was ready. The informant then collected the $5,000 from the unnamed “associate” while Merchant took a bus from Boston to New York for the pickup. The FBI informant met Merchant at a New York City bus station and gave the cash to him. Merchant later went to Manhattan to give the money to the two undercover FBI agents posing as hitmen.
Pretrial proceedings revealed that Merchant had been under U.S. surveillance before he entered the country in April 2024. Merchant was let in despite being on a terrorism watchlist—suggesting that it may have been the government’s plan to set him up all along.
After U.S. bombings killed Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, Trump cited the purported Iranian assassination threat as a motivating factor.
“I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first,” Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl.
It’s unclear whether Trump was referring to the Merchant case, or to conspiracies pushed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that Iran was linked to the Butler shooting and the Palm Beach assassination attempt.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
