The allegation came as Iran weighs a proposed agreement in Vienna talks to revive the 2015 agreement that aims to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

For months Tehran has held up the deal, demanding that the United States remove its official designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a sponsor of terrorism.

“This is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on US soil and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts,” said US Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.

According to the charges, Poursafi tried to arrange Bolton’s murder beginning in October 2021, when he contacted online an unidentified person in the United States, first saying he wanted to commission photographs of Bolton.

That person passed the Iranian onto another contact, who Poursafi then asked to kill Bolton. He offered US$250,000, which was then negotiated up to US$300,000.

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“Poursafi added that he had an additional ‘job’, for which he would pay US$1 million,” the Justice Department said.

But that second person, court documents say, was a confidential source for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The ostensible assassin stalled, waiting for an initial payment, but only in late April did Poursafi send money.

Poursafi was charged with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, which brings up to 10 years in prison, and with providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot, which carries a 15-year sentence.

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Iran vows revenge if US fails to put former president Trump on trial for Soleimani killing

Iran vows revenge if US fails to put former president Trump on trial for Soleimani killing

Bolton, one of the leading “hawks” of the US foreign policy establishment and a strong critic of Iran, was national security adviser in the White House of president Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019.

In the administration of president George Bush, he was ambassador to the United Nations from 2005-2006.

He was strongly opposed to the 2015 agreement between Tehran and major powers to limit its nuclear programme, and supported the Trump administration’s unilateral pull-out from the pact in May 2018.

The court documents indicated Bolton was aware of the plot and cooperated with investigators, allowing photographs of himself outside his Washington office to be sent to Poursafi.

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Over the months Poursafi discussed the plot with his US contact, he disclosed that it related to Tehran’s desire for revenge for the US killing of Soleimani.

Soleimani was head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and personally maintained its network of allies and proxies across the Gulf region.

He was targeted by a US drone strike just after he landed at Baghdad’s airport on January 7, 2020.

Since that strike Tehran has vowed to extract revenge, and US officials have said that the country had been looking to kill one or more US officials.

Another official believed on Tehran’s target list was Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state at the time of the assassination of Soleimani, and before that director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

At the time Pompeo said Soleimani had been plotting large scale attacks on US targets like embassies.

In a statement Bolton thanked the Justice Department and FBI and blasted Iran’s government as “liars, terrorists and enemies of the United States”.

He urged President Joe Biden to not restore the nuclear agreement.