Vape pen on a napkin: Secret FBI video reveals alleged Iran-linked Trump assassination plot

New York: A secretly recorded video played in a Brooklyn federal courtroom shows an alleged Iran-linked operative using objects on a hotel napkin to outline a plan to assassinate then presidential candidate Donald Trump, with prosecutors saying he had already paid $5,000 to men he believed were hired killers.

“This is the target. How will it die?” Asif Merchant is heard saying in the footage, according to testimony presented as his trial opened on charges of attempted terrorism and related offences.

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Prosecutors said Merchant, 47, met the supposed hit men in June 2024, who were in fact undercover FBI agents, after asking intermediary Nadeem Ali to arrange the killing. The video shows Merchant using a vape pen and other items on a napkin to demonstrate how a shooting at a campaign rally would be followed by a staged protest to create confusion and allow the attacker to escape.

“I was shocked,” Ali told the anonymous jury, describing the conversations he secretly recorded for the FBI after growing suspicious of Merchant’s requests.

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Assistant US Attorney Nina Gupta said Merchant never named a specific target but indicated the victim would be “someone who was hurting Pakistan and the Muslim world.” Investigators also found searches for Trump rally locations on his laptop, prosecutors said.

Merchant was arrested before he provided a name to the undercover agents and has pleaded not guilty.

The alleged plot was developed weeks before the July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, which US authorities have said was unrelated. Iran has denied any involvement in threats against US political figures.

The United States and Israel launched waves of strikes Saturday against targets in Iran, sparking swift retaliation by the Islamic Republic.

US President Donald Trump said that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was dead. Iranian state television confirmed the news early Sunday.