As war rages in Iran, Brooklyn trial reveals wannabe Trump assassin's ties to Iranian intelligence

John Annese, New York Daily News on Mar 3, 2026

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NEW YORK — Wannabe Trump assassin Asif Merchant admitted to the FBI that he has an Iranian intelligence handler and a relative who works for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, testimony at his Brooklyn trial revealed Tuesday, as the war in Iran rages halfway around the world.

Merchant, 47, is on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court for murder-for-hire and terrorism related charges, accused of trying to mastermind a political assassination but getting tricked by a confidential informant into hiring two undercover feds as hitmen.

Well before the recent attack that killed Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni, the feds have said Iran had wanted to avenge the death of one of the regime’s generals, Qasem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. Though Merchant didn’t get far enough into the plot to name his target to the agents, court filings show the feds believe he was gaming out killing Donald Trump on the 2024 campaign trail.

Up until Tuesday, the jury heard only passing references to Merchant’s ties to Iran — that he was a Pakistani citizen with a second wife in Iran, and that he’d occasionally travel there.

But when Merchant’s defense team suggested during a witness cross-examination that he didn’t know any secret agent or intelligence types, that opened the door to what he told the FBI during a “proffer statement,” usually given to the feds by defendants who are considering cooperating with the government.

On Tuesday, FBI special agent Jacqueline Smith told jurors that Merchant admitted his cousin, worked for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and that Merchant had an IRGC handler.

The cousin provided Merchant the $5,000 he used to make a down payment on the “hitmen” in his plot, and when the cousin discussed being repaid, “(Merchant) said he would obtain the cash through his IRGC handler,” Smith testified.

Merchant also talked about a conversation between him and his handler: “The defendant said his IRGC handler, Yousef, told him that if he noticed he was being surveilled, he should act normal.”

U.S. District Court Judge Eric Komitee on Monday briefly touched on the U.S. and Israel’s attack to strike Iran over the weekend, noting “this trial is happening during interesting times.”

Merchant sat down with the FBI, a defense lawyer and an Urdu interpreter on three separate days in July 2024 after his arrest, Smith said. His lawyer, Avraham Moskowitz, pointed out that the interviewed weren’t videotaped or recorded, only memorialized by someone taking notes and distilled into a written report.

“So it was an interpretation of what happened?” he asked, and Smith replied, “I disagree with that characterization.”

Outside of the view of the jury Moskowitz suggested that he might raise whether Merchant was lying about his IRGC connections to secure a better deal. But after Komittee said he’d allow prosecutors to counter with Merchant’s statements to the FBI that he, too, was an IRGC operative, the defense lawyer said he wouldn’t pursue that line of questioning.

Jurors so far have heard testimony from the confidential informant who connected Merchant with two FBI agents posing as Mafia killers for hire, as well as from the two agents themselves, and have seen and heard video and audio from their meetings.

One of the FBI agents, Jim Pappas, told jurors about how he and his partner first met Merchant at a strip club on June 10, 2024, “to build a foundation of our persona as being a criminal organization.”

They also bought Merchant a lap dance to prove they were security-conscious, telling Merchant the stripper was making sure he wasn’t wearing a wire, Pappas said. Pappas and his partner moved their meeting to a vehicle outside the strip club, so they could record it, and pushed him on on naming his target, but he said he’d have to return to Pakistan first before he named a name.

“You, like, you want somebody’s wife killed?” Pappas asked, and Merchant told him know, then said, “Uh, may- maybe it’s some political person, maybe some other person.”

“Wow,” Pappas said, and his partner echoed, “A politician?”

“That’s gonna cost,” Pappas said.

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