The State Department announced Thursday that it is offering a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of an Iranian terrorist allegedly involved in a murder-for-hire plot targeting former national security adviser John Bolton and potentially others.
Shahram Poursafi, who is listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the Treasury Department, is believed to be working on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC- QF) to arrange for the assassination of the former Trump administration official, according to the State Department.
“From October 2021 to April 2022, Iran-based Poursafi attempted to hire criminal elements within the United States to murder Mr. Bolton in Washington, D.C., or Maryland in exchange for $300,000,” the State Department said in a statement.
“Poursafi allegedly provided material support and resources to facilitate the attempted killing,” the department continued. “Poursafi told the potential assassin – who actually became a confidential source for US investigators – that once he completed the Bolton murder he would have a second assassination job for him.”
A criminal complaint against Poursafi, unsealed by the Justice Department in August of 2022, accused the IRGC member of using “interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire” and “providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot.”
Poursafi faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on both charges, but he remains at large abroad.
Bolton, who has long been outspoken about his opposition to the Iranian regime, served as Trump’s national security advisor between 2018 and 2019. He previously served as the US ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 under former President George W. Bush.
Bolton, 75, left the Trump administration in September 2019, a few months before a January 2020 US airstrike in Baghdad killed IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani.
The DOJ’s complaint against Poursafi indicated that the assassination plot was “likely” in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani.
Last month, a Secret Service agent told congressional investigators probing the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump that the agency was alerted about the threat of a “possible drone attack” by Iran targeting the former president.
