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Pakistani man who allegedly targeted U.S. officials in murder-for-hire plot faces new terrorism charge
A Pakistani man who was arrested earlier this year for allegedly plotting to assassinate current and former U.S. government officials now faces accusations of terrorism, according to an indictment filed in federal court on Tuesday.
Asif Merchant was initially charged in July on a single count of murder for hire in a criminal complaint that alleged he flew to the U.S. to “recruit individuals to carry out his plot to assassinate U.S. government officials.” A new two-count indictment unsealed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York reiterated the murder-for-hire count and added a charge accusing Merchant of attempting to carry out an act of terrorism.
The 46-year-old with alleged ties to Iran “attempt[ed] to kill a person within the United States” who was either “a member of the uniformed services” or “any official” of the U.S. government, the indictment said in describing the new charge.
Neither the original complaint nor the new indictment named Merchant’s alleged targets. Investigators alleged he planned to tell his co-conspirators who he was going to attack later in the summer. But multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News last month Merchant planned to assassinate current and former government officials across the political spectrum. Merchant had yet to finalize the plan, but former President Donald Trump was among the possible targets, the people said.
GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said last week that evidence his office received detailed information that President Biden and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley were also potential targets.
Details about Merchant’s alleged ties to Iran remain scarce. Charging documents filed earlier this year said he had “a wife and children in Iran” and records “indicated frequent travel to Iran, Syria, and Iraq.” He traveled to Iran in April 2024, the complaint alleged, before traveling to the U.S.
Investigators said he then met with an unnamed co-conspirator-turned-FBI-informant in New York. The two began a months-long relationship, with Merchant eventually revealing his plans, charging documents said.
Merchant allegedly sketched out the plot on a napkin inside his New York hotel room, prosecutors said, and told the individual “that there would be ‘security all around’ the person” they were planning to kill.
The unnamed individual arranged to have Merchant meet up with two undercover agents who Merchant thought were hitmen. “During the meeting, Merchant presented himself as the ‘representative’ in the U.S., indicating that there were other people he worked for outside the U.S.,” prosecutors wrote.
According to the criminal complaint, Merchant told the men he would provide more instructions about the alleged plot in “either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024,” including the target’s name.
Federal officials arrested him in July before a planned trip abroad. During a search, investigators said they found a handwritten note that contained the codewords for the various aspects of the plot.
Merchant has remained in custody and pleaded not guilty to the original single-count complaint. He has not yet been arraigned on the updated charge. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Intelligence about Merchant’s alleged plot featured prominently in the information that prompted the U.S. Secret Service to increase security assets for the former president in recent months, sources familiar with the probe told CBS News. Merchant was arrested one day before the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania, but officials have said there is no indication that his alleged plan of attack was related to that shooting.
“Law enforcement foiled the charged plot before any attack could be carried out. Our ongoing investigation has not found evidence that this defendant (Merchant) had any connection to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania,” a law enforcement official said last month in a statement to CBS News.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials including FBI Director Christopher Wray have been investigating numerous threats from Iran against politicians and government officials that date back to the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani during the Trump administration.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate Iran’s efforts to target our country’s public officials and endanger our national security,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Wednesday.
,
Nicole Sganga and
contributed to this report.
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Biden to stress climate action in first visit by sitting U.S. president to Amazon Rainforest
Washington — President Biden is set to deliver remarks on climate conservation in Manaus, Brazil, on Sunday during a visit to the Amazon rainforest that marks the first such trip by any sitting U.S. president in history.
Mr. Biden has made addressing climate change a key part of his policy agenda, approving legislation that reduces emissions, while setting the country on a path toward a transition to green energy. With the visit Sunday, the president is set to highlight his commitment to combatting global deforestation and conserving forests as part of what the White House calls Mr. Biden’s “historic climate legacy.”
The president is set to announce during the visit that the U.S. has reached its goal of increasing its climate finance to over $11 billion a year, up from $1.5 billion when Mr. Biden took office. He will also designate Nov. 17 as International Conservation Day, while the administration announces new conservation efforts including $50 million for the Amazon Fund, among other initiatives.
Mr. Biden is set to meet local and Indigenous leaders, take an aerial tour of the Amazon rainforest and tour a local museum, before heading to Rio de Janeiro for the G20 summit with world leaders. The trip comes after the president has been attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in recent days, where he met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
The historic visit comes as climate advocates have warned of the environmental consequences of President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to rollback the Biden administration’s efforts to combat climate change.
It took too long for Cher to get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “I thought, what do I have to do?” she said. “I’ve had number one records in all these decades. I had a song [“Believe”] that changed music forever. And so, what is it that I’ve gotta do?”
This year she finally made it. At her induction ceremony last month, she said, “It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was to get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!”
It also took forever for Cher to write her story. This week, “Cher: The Memoir – Part One” finally comes out. Asked what she wanted to say with the book, she replied, “In the beginning, I didn’t wanna say much. And then at some point, I just thought, Cher, do it or give the money back.“
HarperCollins
The book centers on her years with Sonny, and her itinerant childhood with a mother who married at least seven times. She writes of how she had to be a grownup from the beginning: “One time we were driving in the car and she said, ‘Cher, I don’t know how we’re gonna pay the rent. What do you think?’ And I was like, ‘Okay, how is this gonna work? How are we gonna do this?'”
In 1962, Cherilyn Sarkisian met Sonny Bono in a coffee shop. He was wearing a mohair suit and a mustard-colored shirt with a white collar. “I thought it was like when Tony met Maria,” she said. “Everybody disappeared, and it was just the two of us.”
But she said it was not love at first sight. “It was something,” Cher said. “I never felt it before.”
Sonny was 27, Cher was 16. “It wasn’t passionate; I just loved him,” she said.
What did she love about him? “How he was different than anyone else. And he made me laugh. And we had a dream.”
That dream came true. By the mid-1960s, Sonny & Cher had five songs in the top 50 at the same time. They had a #1 hit with “I Got You Babe.”
In the 1970s, on “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,” they’d become America’s favorite couple, with their banter, their songs, and that Bob Mackie wardrobe: “And then, when they started to realize that people were tuning in because of what I was wearing, then they just gave us all the money we needed,” she said. “It was so much fun.”
But Sonny began to change. “He just started not to care,” Cher said.
About what? “About me.”
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He didn’t like her going out, or even talking with their band. But one member had his eye on her: A guitarist by the name of Bill. One night Cher met up with him. “We walked back to this place where the guys used to get high before the show. And then he kissed me, and it was like, Oh, my God.“
Somehow word got back to Sonny. “I don’t know if I can actually say what happened because it’s so personal, and it’s so … it’s embarrassing,” Cher said.
But it’s in the book: After Sonny asked her what she wanted to do, Cher writes: “I said, ‘I want to sleep with Bill.’ It all seems crazy now. I didn’t mean it, but I thought saying those words was the only way that he would let me go.”
“I thought if I do this, it’s over,” she said. “He’s not gonna be able to come back. We’re not gonna be able to be Sonny & Cher. I just wanna blow it up. But I didn’t know I wanted to blow it up until I was blowing it up.”
They offered her anything to keep up appearances: “Because everybody was afraid I was gonna blow up the show. They just said, ‘What do you want?’ And I said, ‘Well, I want my own place in Malibu. And I want $5,000 a month. Hello? And I want freedom.'”
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But Sonny & Cher kept up the façade for two more years, until Cher’s new boyfriend, record executive David Geffen, got a copy of her contract, and she learned the shocking truth: “Sonny owned 95 percent of the company and his lawyer owned five,” she said. “And it was called Cher Enterprises, but I own nothing! And we’d worked together for almost 12 years.”
She confronted Sonny: “I said, ‘When was the moment that you thought this would be a good idea?’ And he said, ‘I always knew you’d leave me.’ And I said, ‘That’s not a reason! Son, how could you do it? I was there by your side working, all those nights, all those days, through good, through bad.’ He didn’t have an answer.
“And we were still friends after that,” she said.
Even after Cher married Gregg Allman and was pregnant with their son, she rejoined Sonny for a revival of their TV show.
Mason asked, “Can you explain why it was that up on that stage all the other stuff seemed to go away?”
“Because we had fun with each other,” Cher replied. “And because on stage, there was no marriage. There was no discord. There was no word for our relationship. And you couldn’t cut it with a chainsaw.”
WATCH ANTHONY MASON’S EXTENDED INTERVIEW WITH CHER:
Cher would go on to win an Oscar, for “Moonstruck.” But that’s for part two of her memoir, which she still has to write.
As for her music, she says she’s got another album she wants to make. When? “After I get rid of this book!” she laughed. “Because talking is harder on your voice than singing. And I want to record an album, and 78 is not exactly a time in your life when you want to. I hope I’m Tony Bennett!”
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READ AN EXCERPT: “Cher: The Memoir – Part One”
For more info:
Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Steven Tyler.
