The Biden administration is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information on a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who is charged with plotting to kill Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton.
U.S. authorities say Shahram Poursafi allegedly worked to arrange a murder-for-hire scheme targeting Bolton between 2021 and 2022, seeking to hire criminals in the U.S. to kill Bolton in Washington, D.C., or Maryland in exchange for $300,000.
“Poursafi told the potential assassin — who actually became a confidential source for U.S. investigators — that once he completed the Bolton murder he would have a second assassination job for him,” the State Department said in a statement announcing the reward.
The reward offer came after U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump about an Iranian assassination plot against him.
Iran has often turned to criminal elements and other third parties to carry out operations against dissidents and critics abroad, according to U.S. and Western officials.
U.S. authorities in January charged an Iranian national and two Canadians, including a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, for allegedly plotting to assassinate an Iranian defector living in Maryland.
The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program said it is ready to pay up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Poursafi.
Poursafi was charged in August 2022 for his role in the alleged plot against Bolton. He remains at large abroad.
Iran has denied it is plotting to assassinate Trump, current or former officials, or others abroad.
But Iranian leaders have vowed to avenge the U.S. drone strike in 2020 that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
Soleimani headed the IRGC’s Quds Force, which supports the activities of Iranian proxy forces like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Then-President Trump authorized the January 2020 strike that killed Soleimani and four others near Baghdad’s airport. Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
When asked about alleged threats of assassination against American officials, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell in an interview this week, “We do not assassinate people, but the fact of the matter is — they assassinated a revered Iranian general.”
Bolton told Mitchell on Thursday that he thinks the U.S. should be “more proactive” about Iranian threats.
“When they come after us, government officials, current and former, for doing their job, really, that’s an attack on the United States government itself,” said Bolton, who is under 24-hour protection because of Iran’s death threats. “I don’t think staying in a passive mode about it is the best way to go. We know that this is more than idle speculation in Tehran.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
