The House Judiciary Committee is demanding immigration records from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security related to Iranian agents who allegedly plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) Fired One Character Pairs It asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the documents on Friday.
The letter said they have yet to receive information about the hitman’s Alien File (A-File), consular file or case history, nor about how he was processed or screened, or whether he was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection upon entry.
As part of its other investigative efforts, the Judiciary Committee has already found 99 terrorism suspects who crossed the southern border and were released into the U.S. in the past two years.
“Potential terrorists and enemies of the United States are exploiting weaknesses in our immigration system to harm people at home,” Jordan and McClintock wrote to Biden administration members of his cabinet.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee were briefed on Tuesday after the Department of Justice indicted Asif Merchant, 46, in a case that federal prosecutors say occurred in New York City in August or early September “orchestrated a plot to assassinate a senior United States government official on U.S. soil.”
Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in an indictment that Merchant, a Pakistani national and “an agent of the Iranian government,” paid a $5,000 advance to federal agents who he believed to be the killer, a law enforcement source told The Washington Post.
According to court documents, Merchant flew from Pakistan to Houston, Texas, via Istanbul, Turkey, in April 2024. Once in the U.S., he “contacted individuals who could assist him in his criminal plans.”
The confidant later became a law enforcement source and helped thwart the assassination plot, leading to Marchant’s arrest on July 12, the day before Trump was tried by suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the alleged Iranian operatives, who were set to leave the U.S. that month, carried out the plot in retaliation for the killing of prominent Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani.
Trump, 78, ordered the U.S. airstrikes that took out Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, in January 2020.
