Iranian operative charged in plot to kill former national security advisor John Bolton

Former national security advisor John Bolton speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Sept. 30, 2019. An Iranian operative has been charged in a plot to murder former U.S. national security advisor John Bolton in presumed retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed the country’s most powerful general, offering $300,000 to “eliminate” the Trump administration official, the Justice Department said Wednesday. “And this is not the first time we’ve uncovered brazen acts by Iran to exact revenge against individuals in the U.S.” In 2011, for instance, the FBI and Justice Department revealed an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. while the envoy was in the United States. He said Iran “reserves the right to take any action within the framework of international law to defend the rights of the government and citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In his own statement, Bolton thanked the FBI and Justice Department for their work in developing the case and the Secret Service for providing protection. In his statement, Bolton said that “Iran’s nuclear-weapons and terrorist activities are two sides of the same coin” and asserted that America reentering the 2015 deal would be an “unparalleled self-inflicted wound, to ourselves and our closest Middle East allies.” The Justice Department described Poursafi as being at large abroad but did not elaborate on where he might be.