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 @ISIDEWITHNewsDaily DiscussionIranFBIPennsylvaniaAssassinationLaw Enforcement•••1yr ago

Justice Department Charges Man With Iran Murder-For-Hire Scheme

A complaint unsealed Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn charges Asif Merchant, 46, of Pakistan, with a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate a politician or U.S. government official on American soil. Authorities said they foiled the plot before any violence could be attempted — in part because the people Merchant allegedly tried to hire were undercover FBI agents.

According to court documents, Merchant in June met with what he thought were hit men, and told them he would have a number of assignments for them, including an assassination of targets whom he would identify later.

Merchant was arrested, according to court papers, on July 12 — one day before a 20-year-old man in Pennsylvania fired shots during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., grazing Trump’s ear. Investigators do not believe the Iranian plot and the actions by the Pennsylvania gunmen are related, according to law enforcement officials.

The alleged Iranian-backed plot, however, had raised concerns about Trump’s safety in the weeks before the shooting, according to U.S. officials familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.

11 Replies

 @CheerfulCowDemocrat from Texas  commented…1yr1Y

And I’m sure all Republicans will be happy to vote to defund the FBI so they can just stop successful investigations like this one to prevent an assassination attempt against the messianic Trump.

 @EnergeticLobbyDemocratfrom Oregon  disagreed…1yr1Y

FBI does remarkably great work! Even though Trump paranoia has him thinking every one is after him!

 @V0terPupRepublicanfrom Missouri  commented…1yr1Y

To listen to the Far Left, Iran is just misunderstood...

They killed 10,000 "dissidents" this year and rape and torture women's activists.

"But they are the good guys we swear cause I met an Iranian refugee once and he was nice!"

 @SimilarImpeachmentGreenfrom Massachusetts  disagreed…1yr1Y

The Orange Felon, the disgusting Trump, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans by playing politics with COVID. Iran is jealous of the Felon.

 @Idealistic1973Veteran from Massachusetts  commented…1yr1Y

Didn’t Israel, once again, just demonstrate that state sponsored assassinations in foreign countries is acceptable?

 @G3rrymanderElandRepublican from Colorado  disagreed…1yr1Y

That would be a no. Terrorists aren't assassinated like political leaders. They're eliminated for what they are.

 @9RXFBYK from California  commented…1yr1Y

Why are we still trying to fix the world’s problems when we have bigger problems at home that our government is ignoring

 @MinorityLillianRepublican from Georgia  commented…1yr1Y

Joe Biden has no idea where he is but maybe Kamala Harris can pay some rappers to tell us why this is a good thing.

 @Pl4tformOliviaRepublican from Tennessee  commented…1yr1Y

Time’s up for the Mullahs. The Israelis just showed that even their revolutionary guard is not reliable anymore. Before taking out Khamenei in his bed they should drop leaflets all over Tehran saying that the time to rise up, overthrow this backwards medieval regime, and become a normal country is nigh.

 @ISIDEWITHasked…1yr1Y

How do you feel about the use of undercover FBI agents in preventing potential crimes, and where should we draw the line between surveillance and privacy?

 @ISIDEWITHasked…1yr1Y

Does the origin of a threat (such as being from another country) influence how seriously you think it should be taken, and why?

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…1yr1Y

Biden retaliated against a Dem who called for him to step aside

Rep. Hillary Scholten, a first-term Democrat who flipped a traditionally Republican seat in 2022, was booted last week from from a coordinated effort between the the Biden campaign and the state party to elect candidates up and down the ticket, according to four people with knowledge of the situation, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about private discussions.It happened soon after she called for Biden to step aside, those people said, which angered many Democrats behind the scenes. The Biden campaign was contacted by POLITICO Wednesday evening; Scholten was reinstated Thursday morning.“Rep. Scholten is welcome at the coordinated campaign and we look forward to campaigning with her this fall,” said Mia Ehrenberg, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, when asked about Scholten’s removal from the coordinated campaign.The initial decision to remove Scholten from the joint effort — which would have essentially cut her off from the combined field effort between the presidential, Senate and House races — came from the Michigan state party, according to two people familiar with the discussions. If she had remained excluded from the coordinated effort, it could’ve meant that when Democratic organizers were campaigning in her district, they would tout Biden and the party’s Senate nominee — but not Scholten.The Michigan Democratic Party declined to comment. But two people familiar with discussions said Scholten had specifically infuriated state leaders when she spoke out against Biden — on the same day that the president was already visiting Michigan — without informing them of her plans, according to the two people.“This decision was made in Wilmington, full stop,” a Democratic operative who’s worked on competitive House races said. “Punishing her isn’t just petty and vindictive, it’s self-defeating.”An official for the Biden campaign denied that: “This did not come from Wilmington.”

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…11mos11MO

Trump’s Doom vs. Harris’s Hope as America Decides Its Fate

Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris closed out their campaigns in the final hours before Election Day in starkly different moods: The former president, often appearing drained at arenas that were not filled, claimed that the country was on the brink of ruin, while the vice president promised a more united future as energized supporters chanted alongside her, “We’re not going back.”In stop after stop, the presidential rivals essentially offered up two competing versions of reality on Monday and into early Tuesday. Mr. Trump repeatedly raised the specter of unchecked immigration and the dangers of Democratic policies as he spoke to crowds in North Carolina and Pennsylvania before closing with a midnight rally in Michigan.With a comparatively more optimistic message, Ms. Harris crisscrossed Pennsylvania, which holds 19 electoral votes that could decide the race. Stopping in Scranton, Allentown and Pittsburgh before a nighttime rally in Philadelphia, Ms. Harris talked about bolstering the economy and restoring federal abortion rights. She asserted that Americans were “exhausted” and ready to move on from the politics of the past decade.About 30 miles to the southwest, Mr. Trump was in Reading, Pa., broadly portraying undocumented immigrants as mentally ill criminals and calling those accused of crimes “savages” and “animals.”Both leaned on Hispanic supporters as they tried to rally Latino voters. The pro-Harris rapper Fat Joe, who is Puerto Rican, practically shamed his fellow Latinos in Allentown as he asked, “Where’s your pride?” Mr. Trump, still facing fallout from his rally in New York at which a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” brought Roberto Clemente Jr., the son of the Puerto Rican baseball legend, to the stage at a rally in Pittsburgh.But Mr. Trump, reaching the end of a grueling marathon of a campaign that began in 2022, looked visibly weary, battling fatigue in front of listless crowds, though he was relatively more upbeat and energized in Michigan. Ms. Harris, still appearing fresh after a three-month sprint, appealed for unity and pressed the contrast to her rival without uttering his name.“The measure of a true leader is based not on who you beat down,” she said. “It is based on who you lift up.”Despite the sharply different tones, polls suggest the race remains tight, with the final New York Times/Siena College surveys showing the candidates tied or holding only narrow leads in all of the seven battleground states.

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