Pakistani businessman claims Iran forced him to plot Trump assassination

A Pakistani businessman accused of hiring hitmen to kill political targets including President Donald Trump insisted in testimony to jurors in New York on Wednesday that Iran forced his actions.

47-year-old Asif Merchant told jurors that the list included then-President Joe Biden and former presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and said that Trump was not the only potential target of the 2024 assassination plan. He claimed that he joined the plot because Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guards were threatening his family.

“My family was under threat and I had to do this,” Merchant testified through an Urdu translator. “I didn’t mean to do it so willingly.”

Merchant said he expected to be arrested before anyone was killed and that he intended to cooperate with the U.S. government and hoped it would help him get a green card.

Merchant was charged in July 2024 after he was recorded on camera sketching on a napkin a plot to kill an unnamed politician with someone who turned out to be an informant. Merchant also allegedly tried to recruit two hitmen and pay them $5,000, but the men were FBI agents posing as assassins.

The merchant was arrested while trying to leave the country before he could take any concrete steps to carry out his murder plan. At the time, officials said he appeared to be acting on Iran’s orders.

A sketch of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani citizen with alleged ties to Iran, appearing in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (Christine Cornell)

The Iranian government has denied conspiring to kill Trump or other US officials.

Merchant said his manager initially instructed him to recruit U.S. residents willing to work for Iran, then progressed the mission to find a criminal who would organize protests, steal, launder money and “maybe get someone killed.”

“He didn’t tell me exactly who he was, but he did name three people: Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Nikki Haley,” he said.

Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks behind bulletproof glass during a campaign rally at the North Carolina Aviation Museum and Hall of Fame on August 21, 2024 in Asheboro, North Carolina. (Peter Zay/AFP via Getty Images)

Prosecutors argued that Merchant continued the alleged plot even after U.S. immigration officials stopped him at the Houston airport in April 2024, searched his belongings and questioned him about his trips to Iran. He scouted Trump rally locations, drafted plans to attack a political event, lined up would-be hitmen and collected $5,000 from a cousin as a “token of appreciation.”

Feds Say Iran-Backed Pakistan National Group Plotted to Assassinate Trump, Others Plotted Murder-for-Hire

Merchant said he reported to his contact in the Revolutionary Guard and sent what he claimed were fabricated updates hidden in a book sent to Iran through intermediaries.

The handler testified that he felt he “had no choice” but to cooperate, as Merchant stated that he knew where his relatives in Iran lived.

But prosecutors said in a court filing this week that Merchant never contacted law enforcement before his arrest and did not mention details during FBI interviews that support his claim that he acted under duress.

Merchant faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

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Merchant’s trial comes at a time when Trump has launched a major combat operation against Iran in coordination with Israel, killing Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an attack.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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