Senator Chuck Grassley released FBI records on Thursday showing that Iranian-backed plotters sought to assassinate former President Donald Trump and other prominent American political figures in relation to the killing of Qasem Soleimani. Soleimani was the head of the Quds Force, part Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC).

The records, provided to Grassley through legally protected whistle blower disclosures, reveal that Iran potentially targeted ‘politicians, military people or bureaucrats’ including President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and former candidate Nikki Haley.

‘Bad actors are determined to wreak havoc on our country, and American political leaders across both parties are sitting squarely in the crosshairs,’ said Senator Grassley in a statement. ‘In this extraordinarily heightened threat environment, federal agencies ought to be laser focused on building up public trust and reassuring the American people of their efforts to carry out their protective missions.’

‘I won’t stop pressing for answers until Congress and the American people are afforded the transparency they deserve,’ Grassley concluded.

A native of Pakistan with ties to Iran, Asif Merchant, has been charged for his involvement in the assassination plot. Merchant provided evidence to the FBI in a proffer agreement.

According to the FBI records, Merchant believed he was in for a kill-for-hire scheme that would offer him a cut of $50,000 for successful completion. In his interrogation, Merchant provided options for shooting former President Trump at both indoor and outdoor speaking engagements.

Merchant further expressed that he could hit a target up close or from further away, that a pistol would be best for indoors, but a rifle was necessary otherwise. He believed he had about a 50% chance of success, according to the FBI records.

Asif Merchant communicated with Iran via English language notes smuggled in packages for different extended family members.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan will not hold the trial for former President Trump on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation until after the 2024 presidential election. 

Chutkan held a status hearing Thursday morning in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in which lawyers for Trump pleaded not guilty on his behalf related to charges from Smith’s new indictment after the Supreme Court ruled a president is immune from prosecution for official acts in office.

In an order Thursday afternoon, Chutkan set deadlines for replies and paperwork from federal prosecutors and Trump’s legal team for Nov. 7 — after Election Day. 

Trump did not appear in court Thursday. His lawyers pleaded not guilty on his behalf. Smith was in court Thursday morning. 

The case pertains to Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Last week, the former president was indicted and issued revised criminal charges by Smith, who alleges Trump pressured former Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes, in addition to mounting fake electors in key states that went to President Biden and to attest to Trump’s electoral victory.

The new indictment keeps the prior criminal charges but narrows and reframes the allegations against the Republican presidential nominee after a Supreme Court ruling that conferred broad immunity on former presidents.

Specifically, the indictment has been changed to remove allegations involving Department of Justice officials and other government officials. It clarifies Trump’s role as a candidate and makes clear the allegations regarding his conversations with then-Vice President Pence in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate.

The new indictment removes a section of the previous indictment that had accused Trump of trying to use the Justice Department to undo his 2020 loss. The Supreme Court recently ruled in a 6-3 decision that Trump was immune from prosecution for official White House acts.

Trump has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Those charges, to which Trump pleaded not guilty, remain. 

Smith alleges Trump participated in an effort to enlist slates of fake electors in key states won by Biden to attest that Trump had in fact won and that Trump pressured Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes.

The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case. The new grand jury has only heard this new information.

Sources familiar with the matter tell Fox News that discussions surrounding the superseding indictment will likely not speed things up, and it is unlikely it will go to trial before the November election. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Vice President Harris’ campaign is organizing to target Republican voters with new outreach through paid media and grassroots-driven digital efforts while touting recent endorsements from GOP dissenters, Fox News Digital has learned.

Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News Digital that Harris ‘has Republican momentum right now.’ 

The Harris campaign pointed to recent endorsements from Republicans and former Republicans, like former Rep. Liz Cheney, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Jimmy McCain, son of late-Sen. John McCain, and more than 200 staffers who served in Republican administrations.

Cheney lost re-election in 2022 after being ousted from her role as the House GOP Conference chair due to her role on the House Jan. 6 Committee and anti-Trump statements. Kinzinger, who also sat on the House Jan. 6 Committee, retired from Congress in 2022. 

‘We are proud of the bipartisan groundswell behind Vice President Harris,’ Sams told Fox News Digital. ‘And we will continue working every day to earn the support of Republican voters who want a president like her who still believes in patriotism, freedom, and our Constitution.’

A Harris campaign official also touted the half dozen Republican speakers at the Democratic National Convention last month, including Kinzinger, former Trump White House national security official Olivia Troye and former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

A Harris campaign official also pointed to the Republicans for Harris program it launched last month, which included endorsements from former GOP Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former GOP New Jersey Gov. Christine Temple Whitman and former GOP Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh.

The Harris campaign also told Fox News Digital it has a ‘National Republican Engagement Director’ who is dedicated to ‘furthering the campaign’s outreach to Independents and moderate Republicans.’ The campaign has spent more than seven-figures communicating with those voters, it said. 

But the Trump campaign blasted the Harris campaign’s claims of ‘Republican momentum.’

‘Kamala’s team is desperately grasping at straws because they are threatened by President Trump’s endorsements from influential former Democrats like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard,’ Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. ‘No conservative in their right mind will be voting for radical Marxist, weak-on-crime, open border, high tax Kamala Harris.’ 

‘We do agree with Liz Cheney on one thing,’ Leavitt said, pointing to Cheney’s Aug. 11, 2020, tweet in which she blasted Harris as a ‘radical liberal.’

Former President Trump last month landed endorsements from former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.

RFK Jr. and Gabbard officially joined the Trump transition team last week, a move that broadened Trump’s coalition of supporters ‘across partisan lines.’

President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced new efforts to crack down on Russian election interference on Wednesday, but Republicans say they are ‘skeptical’ of the new moves so close to the November election. 

‘We’ve seen this before. In 2016, the same people pushed the Russia hoax and we now know it was totally bogus. Now, it may be true this time, but I am extremely skeptical,’ House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital. 

The DOJ on Wednesday announced it is seizing 32 websites it says were linked to the Russian government and used to spread disinformation. The Justice, State and Treasury departments also indicted a pair of employees at Russian state-controlled outlet RT. 

The indictment claimed that RT, in a $10 million scheme, had duped US-based influencers into sharing content ‘deemed favorable to the Russian government’ through a Tennessee-based company believed to be Tenet Media. 

The DOJ accused RT of ‘conspiring to commit money laundering and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.’

The content was designed to amplify ‘U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests, particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine.’ 

Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump advisor, wrote on X: ‘The biggest election interference in American History is the DOJ’s weaponization of the security state — surveillance, fake intelligence, sham indictments, raids, mass censorship, importing illegal voters — to target President Trump, his aides and supporters. Third world tyranny.’

‘Russian interference again says the Democrat’s DOJ,’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wrote on X. ‘We would hate for Russian influence to convince Americans that the Democrats and Kamala Harris caused all this crippling inflation, wide open deadly border invasion by tens of millions of illegal migrants, and funded senseless foreign wars and cause Americans to vote for Trump!!’

Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back on the skepticism and 2016 parallels: ‘This is deadly serious, and we are going to treat it accordingly.’

When asked by Fox News Digital about its reaction to the allegations, RT said, ‘We certainly have a reaction. Actually, we had several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are.’ 

‘2016 called and it wants its clichés back,’ was among them, as were: ‘Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the U.S. elections,’ ‘We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow,’ and ‘Somewhere Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her.’ 

The indictments included several internal propaganda project proposals put together by the Kremlin. The proposals aimed at sowing racial discord and the threat of ‘widespread poverty’ due to inflation.

According to project ‘Good Old USA,’ they increase the belief that the U.S. ‘has been doing way too much to support Ukraine’ to 51 percent, up from 41 percent in a November Gallup poll.

Under their ‘targeted audiences’ section, the project said it would focus its efforts on U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent, American Jews, American gamers and Reddit users and residents of swing states. 

‘The Guerilla Media Campaign’ said that it was not aimed at justifying Russia as no American politicians could be classified as ‘pro-Putin,’ but rather on bolstering beliefs that the policies of ‘Candidate B,’ believed to be Biden, are ‘encroaching on their rights.’ 

The Russians deemed Republicans to be ‘advancing a relatively pro-Russian agenda.’

It directed surrogates to hone in on spreading content about ‘record inflation,’ ‘risk of job loss for White Americans,’ ‘privileges for people of color, perverts and the disabled,’ ‘threat of crime from people of color and immigrants (including new immigrants from Ukraine),’ and ‘overspending on foreign policy at the expense of interests of white US citizens.’ 

It also aimed to spread the message: ‘We are being drawn into war. Our guys will die in Ukraine.’ It called for a ‘minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information.’ 

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.

America First Legal (AFL) is suing New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan for refusing to turn over his financial disclosures amid questions about his daughter’s work at a Democratic firm, Fox News Digital has learned. 

AFL sued Merchan, who presided over former President Donald Trump’s six-week-long trial in New York v. Trump, stemming from the yearslong investigation out of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. They also sued the New York State Unified Court System’s Ethics Commission.

Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump has appealed the ruling and called on Merchan to overturn the verdict. 

The lawsuit comes after the AFL sent a demand letter last week for Merchan’s financial disclosures, threatening legal action. The AFL previously requested those records in June. 

Under New York law, judges are required to file annual financial disclosures, which are required to be made available upon request. 

‘The law is clear that judicial financial disclosures must be released to the public,’ AFL Vice President Dan Epstein told Fox News Digital. ‘New York’s highest court has stated that such disclosures are necessary for parties before the courts to get a fair shake.’ 

Epstein said the public ‘needs to know what Judge Merchan is hiding or even if he failed to file financial disclosures at all.’ 

‘This is especially important given the fact that Merchan appears to have engaged in unlawful campaign contributions and is on the precipice of criminally sentencing the former president of the United States,’ Epstein said. ‘Fundamental fairness dictates a resolution of America First Legal’s suit in its favor.’ 

The AFL is seeking the records amid longstanding concerns of a conflict of interest in Merchan’s role in the trial amid his daughter’s political work. 

Loren Merchan sits as the president for Authentic Campaigns — a company that has done political work for top Democrat clients like President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

‘Clearly, Justice Merchan’s daughter and her clients stand to profit handsomely from lawfare against President Trump,’ the AFL wrote in its lawsuit. 

They also noted that Judge Merchan has donated to Democratic causes, including to Biden’s campaign and a group called ‘Stop Republicans.’ 

In July 2023, the Commission on Judicial Conduct cautioned Merchan for his ‘improper political donations to the Biden campaign and ‘Stop Republicans,’’ the lawsuit states. 

‘Given the magnitude of the Criminal Matter and Justice Merchan’s readily apparent political bias, conflict, and partiality, public-interest organizations such as AFL have a keen interest in obtaining the Requested Disclosures and shining light on his finances,’ the lawsuit states. 

Republicans have accused Judge Merchan of political bias over his daughter’s political work. Trump’s legal team asked Merchan to recuse himself before the trial began, which he did not.

A New York state ethics panel backed Merchan’s decision in a June 2023 decision.

The House Judiciary Committee, last week, subpoenaed Authentic Campaigns after the company refused to provide information and records related to the prosecution of former President Trump in New York v. Trump. 

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said that Judge Merchan’s ‘impartiality’ has come into question over his daughter’s work and his ‘refusal to recuse himself from the case in light of his apparent conflicts of interest and biases.’ 

The CEO of Authentic reacted to the subpoena last week, saying the allegations against the company are ‘completely false and purely politically motivated.’ 

‘This is a blatant attempt to intimidate us and divert attention from Donald Trump’s conviction,’ CEO Michael Nellis said. ‘We refuse to be bullied, and we will not allow House Republicans or MAGA extremists to spread lies about our work.’ 

Meanwhile, Trump’s sentencing has been set for Sept. 18. He has requested that it be delayed until after the November presidential election. 

Merchan has yet to make a decision on the matter.