Tea at Trianon: Pakistani Man with Alleged Ties to Iran Arrested

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 9, 2024

Pakistani Man with Alleged Ties to Iran Arrested

From Just the News:

The U.S. Justice Department charged Asif Merchant, 46, a Pakistani man with alleged ties to the Iranian government with plotting to carry out political assassinations, according to an indictment revealed on Tuesday. The arrest on July 12 resulted in enhanced security for former President Donald Trump and certain U.S. government officials who the FBI reportedly determined were the suspect's targets.

A Justice Department official confirmed the case involving Merchant was the threat that Secret Service was aware of when it became to ramp up Trump's security in the lead up to the Butler, Pa. rally where he was shot. Federal prosecutors filed the charges in Brooklyn against Merchant, who reportedly traveled to New York City and collaborated with hitmen on the plot. Merchant is currently in federal custody after getting arrested while allegedly planning to leave the U.S. (Read more.)

From Breitbart:

Merchant later allegedly explained that his assassination plot involved “three different criminal schemes,” according to the criminal complaint. The first involved “stealing documents or USB drives from a target’s home,” and the second part involved “planning a protest.” The third part of Merchant’s plot scheme involved “killing a politician or government official.”

Along with requesting hitmen “who could do the killing,” Merchant reportedly requested “approximately twenty-five people who could perform a protest as a distraction after the murder occurred” and for a “woman to do ‘reconnaissance'” work, according to the criminal complaint.

The criminal complaint states:

Using the plural tense to indicate he was working with people overseas, MERCHANT stated that “we” would give the instructions, including the target name, to the hitmen either the last week of August 2024 or the first week of September 2024, when MERCHANT was out of the U.S.

Merchant was arrested and taken into custody on July 12 as he was attempting to leave the country, according to the press release.

The unsealing of the criminal complaint comes weeks after an assassination attempt on Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. (Read more.)