US Offers $20M Reward in Plot Against Trump Official

The Biden administration has put up $20 million in reward money for a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps charged in a plot to kill a former US national security adviser. The offer is good for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Shahram Poursafi, USA Today reports. US officials said the scheme to kill John Bolton, who served in Donald Trump's administration, is part of a larger plot against Americans in retaliation for the then-president's order to kill Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.

U.S. authorities say Shahram tried to hire criminals in the US between October 2021 to April 2022 to kill Bolton in Washington, DC, or Maryland. Bolton now is under 24-hour guard, per NBC News. "When they come after us, government officials, current and former, for doing their job, really, that's an attack on the United States government itself," he said. Intelligence officials briefed Trump this week about an Iranian assassination plot against him.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed Wednesday that the administration is "tracking very intensely … an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials." He said possible targets include Trump as well as current members of the Biden administration. Poursafi, who is at large abroad, was charged in August 2022. An analyst said the reward is unusually high for a terrorist suspect. "That is a statement," said Matthew Levitt. Iran has denied intending to kill US current or former officials. "We do not assassinate people," Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif told NBC, "but the fact of the matter is—they assassinated a revered Iranian general." (More Iran stories.)