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EXCLUSIVE: Former White House National Security Advisor Amb. John Bolton said the assassination plot against him by an Iranian agent and Iran’s continued threats to American citizens on American soil are “unprecedented” and “an act of war,” and told Fox News that the Biden administration has been “signaling weakness” to Tehran. and should “end” negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal.
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced charges against Iranian agent Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in an alleged plot to assassinate Bolton, who served as the former president’s national security adviser. Trump until 2019.
US officials said the plot was likely planned in retaliation for the January 2020 attack that killed Qassem Soleimani, a revered Iranian leader and head of Iran’s Quds Force.
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Bolton said he had been “aware” of plots against him for “some time.”
THE IRANIAN OPERATIVE LEADS US TO AN ALLEGED PLOT TO ASSASSIN JOHN BOLTON
Bolton said that in the spring of 2020, the FBI contacted him about the “duty to warn.”
“I was given several duties to warn as time went on, and each one was getting a little more serious,” Bolton said, noting that he went to a meeting at the FBI in the fall of 2021, where officials explained the latest information they had. had plots against him.
National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on December 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
Bolton told Fox News that he applied for U.S. Secret Service protection, which he had during the Trump administration, but that ended with his resignation.
The FBI granted the USSS’s request for protection in December 2021, and Bolton told Fox News the protection was continuing.
But Bolton said he is not so concerned about the individual plot against him, but about threats from Iran against all Americans.
“It’s not just me,” Bolton said. “The regime in Tehran has targeted many Americans.”
“The goal here is to kill Americans on American soil and their former government officials,” Bolton explained. “This is a broad threat to private American citizens on American soil, and I think it’s essentially unprecedented.”
Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani attends a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran on September 18, 2016. (Pool/Iranian Supreme Leader Press Office/Anadolu Agency /Getty Images)
He added: “You could call it an act of war, and it tells you everything you need to know about the government in Tehran.”
The Justice Department, in charging Poursafi this week, said he “has a solemn duty to defend our citizens from hostile governments that seek to make or kill them.”
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s Homeland Security Division said that “this is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to retaliate against people on American soil, and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt each of these efforts. .”
According to the Justice Department, Poursafi approached a U.S. resident he had met online and asked for photos of the former national security adviser, claiming they would be used for a book he was writing. The resident connected Poursafi with someone willing to take the photos for $5,000-$10,000.
National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks to reporters during a press conference at the White House, October 3, 2018. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Poursafi then contacted another person over encrypted messaging apps and offered $250,000 to hire someone to “take out” Bolton, an amount that was eventually negotiated down to $300,000. Poursafi also hinted at another “job” in the future, noting that it would pay $1 million.
Poursafi then walked the individual through how to carry out the operation, noting that using a small weapon would require the individual to get close to the former Trump administration adviser.
“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, through the defendant, attempted to hatch a brazen plot: to assassinate a former U.S. official on American soil in retaliation for U.S. actions,” he said. this week by US Attorney Matthew M. Graves of the District of Columbia.
Opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, including Trump administration officials, argue that the deal encouraged Iran’s non-nuclear activity, such as its support for extremism, the development of ballistic missiles and cyber attacks. (Reuters)
Meanwhile, Bolton criticized the Biden administration for engaging in negotiations with Tehran to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, known as the Iran nuclear deal.
“More important to me than the threats to individuals is this catastrophic strategic policy that the administration is pursuing to try to revive the 2015 nuclear deal,” Bolton said. “You have a government that will absolutely not follow through on any commitment it makes; it will do whatever it thinks necessary to get nuclear weapons.”
He added: “People are fooling themselves if they think that if we give Iran enough concessions, which they win to let us back into the nuclear deal, they will do whatever they want.”
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President Trump’s administration withdrew from the deal in 2018.
Bolton told Fox News that he believes the threat posed by Iran to the United States has been “escalating for some time,” but said it is now “at its highest level.”
This image taken from a video broadcast by Iranian state television on Tuesday, March 8, 2022, shows the launch of a rocket by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with a Noor-2 satellite in the northeast from the Shahroud desert, Iran. (Iranian state television via AP)
regime of Iran has boasted in recent weeks that it may develop a nuclear weaponand even threatened to obliterate New York with an atomic bomb, turning the metropolis into “infernal ruins.”
“The Biden administration has been signaling weakness,” Bolton said, noting that officials said they view the nuclear deal talks “as separate from terrorism.
“Well, that may be fine for the White House, but in Tehran, they don’t have those compartments,” he continued. “And Iran sees this jumble of inconsistent policies that we’re pursuing and that’s also a sign of weakness.”
President Biden’s negotiators in Vienna, Austria, have not sought to restrict Iran’s production of its long-range missile program.
The Iran nuclear deal contains no provisions to stop Tehran’s sponsorship of terrorism around the world.
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Bolton told Fox News that he would “end negotiations” in light of the threats against him and American citizens.
“I don’t think the deal as written would prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, I don’t think the passage of time has improved it, I don’t think the concessions the Biden administration has made have strengthened the deal. . I think they’ve weakened the deal,” Bolton said.
The flag of Iran is seen in front of the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. (Michael Gruber/Getty Images)
Bolton said Iran is using “negotiations as camouflage and as a weapon.”
Bolton told Fox News that America’s adversaries took the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan last year “as a signal to retreat.”
U.S. soldiers stand guard along a perimeter at Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, Aug. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)
“I thought it was a terrible mistake to withdraw, I mean, the way the withdrawal was carried out was also shameful and dangerous, but the decision was a mistake,” Bolton said, adding that “the past year has shown that the United States gave up an incredibly important strategic position in Central Asia.”
“They’ve abandoned him for nothing and he’s increased the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan,” Bolton told Fox News. “It has enhanced the strategic circumstances of Russia and China in Central Asia; it has reflected that the Taliban ignored one commitment after another.”
“We have to learn that terrorists, whether they are terrorist states or terrorist groups, do not follow through on their commitments,” Bolton continued. “The Taliban didn’t do it. The Iranians don’t.”
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Bolton told Fox News that Beijing and Moscow saw the withdrawal “as a sign of American withdrawal and isolationism and have acted accordingly.”
“Very detrimental to our interest,” Bolton said.
Brooke Singman is a political reporter for Fox News Digital. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.