Iranian man charged for trying to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton

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• Judy Woodruff:

  As we reported, the Department of Justice has charged an Iranian with trying to assassinate former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

  U.S. officials say the man was a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

  Nick Schifrin is following this, and he joins me here.

  So, hello, Nick.

  What do we know about this plot?

• Nick Schifrin:

  U.S. officials say, beginning in about October 2021, an Iranian named Shahram Poursafi — that is his FBI wanted poster — began to take steps to assassinate Bolton.

  And you can see there both on the left and the right Poursafi in uniform. That, DOJ says, is part of the evidence that he was a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. That's the unit that oversees operation, really the military wing of the regime.

  DOJ says Poursafi hired a person in the U.S. that DOJ identifies as a confidential human source to the U.S., offered him first $250,000, then, after negotiation, $300,000 in digital currency to hire someone to assassinate John Bolton.

  The person in the U.S. said that, yes, he had hired someone, a member of a Mexican cartel. And Poursafi said that he wanted Bolton to be killed by the end of 2021. And at one point, Poursafi even messaged this person in the U.S. a photo of the cash that he was offering.The FBI was able to get inside of Poursafi's messaging apps.

  Here's how Matt Olsen, the assistant attorney general for national security, described it earlier today.

• Matthew Olsen, Assistant U.S. Attorney General:

  This was not an idle threat. And this is not the first time we have uncovered brazen acts by Iran to exact revenge against individuals on U.S. soil. We will work tirelessly to continue to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And that is a reference to a previous Iranian plot to assassinate the former Saudi ambassador in the U.S.

  Bottom line, Judy, Justice, the FBI took this plot very seriously, even though the person that Poursafi thought he was hiring to hire a hit man was in fact an FBI informant.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, Nick, what is the government saying about why they believe the Revolutionary Guard was targeting Bolton?

• Nick Schifrin:

  Poursafi and this official in the U.S. talked about Qasem Soleimani.

  This is the former head of the Quds Force who was killed in a U.S. drone strike on January 3, 2020. Iran has been very clear that it wanted revenge for Soleimani's death, especially by killing individual Americans, something that Bolton told me earlier today when we spoke.

• John Bolton, Former U.S. National Security Adviser:

  It was very serious.

  And I don't think it was John Bolton alone that was the target here. I think there were many former administration officials, but also private American citizens. And it really tells you the real nature of the regime in Tehran, that they are threatening American citizens on American soil.

• Nick Schifrin:

  A former senior official tells me that Iran identified five specific former officials to assassinate, former President Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Bolton, the former top commander in the Middle East General Frank McKenzie, who was in charge of all military — U.S. military in the Middle East, and Brian Hook, the former special envoy for Iran.

  And, in fact, Poursafi specifically said there was going to be a second target for which he was willing to pay $1 million to assassinate, and that — quote — "his time would come." U.S. officials say the threat is very much active today, Judy.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, that's disturbing.

  So, Nick, all this happens as the administration is just about to reenter these nuclear talks on Iran's nuclear program. How is it felt that this is going to affect all that?

• Nick Schifrin:

  U.S. officials say it will not affect those talks.

  A White House spokesperson tells me today that President Biden still believes diplomacy is the best path to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Their argument is that the U.S. will deal with Iran's other destabilizing behavior, the largest ballistic missile program in the Middle East, Iran's support for proxies and terrorism across the region, but separately want to put the Iranian nuclear program, so to speak, in a kind of box.

  Bolton, however, and others disagree.

• John Bolton:

  Iran's nuclear weapons program and its terrorist activities are two sides of the same coin. You can't separate one from the other. They are endemic to the regime in Tehran.

  That was the mistake of the 2015 deal. It's the mistake in trying to go back into it.

• Nick Schifrin:

  But what the administration argues is that it's actually easier to deal with those other aspects of Iran's malign activity in the Middle East if Iran's nuclear program is constrained, and that's what they will continue to do.

  As for the talks, Judy, senior U.S. officials told me that they have actually made a lot of progress in the last few months. They have jumped over the kind of major hurdles that they had at the beginning of the deal, which steps the U.S. would take in order to lift the sanctions on Iran, and which steps Iran had to take to get back into compliance when it comes to its nuclear program.

  But the two sides are disagreeing still to this day over whether the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, can investigate Iran's previous attempts to try and create a nuclear program, those attempts, of course, that Iran concealed from the world.

  There is a final text on the table, Judy, and we may know within just a couple of days whether there might, there could be a deal or not.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Timing of this very interesting.

  John Bolton, of course, a longtime opponent of any nuclear deal with Iran.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Absolutely.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Nick Schifrin, thank you very much.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Thank you.