Assassination plot foiled? Or something else?

[UNCjigga]

Two American dudes pretending to be federal agents ingratiated themselves with members of the Secret Service by giving them lavish gifts. Except…they’re being paid by Pakistani/Iranian intelligence? And they got really close to Jill Biden’s SS detail. Of course, they were foiled by…postal inspectors?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/04/07/federal-agents-impersonators-secret-service/

One of two men accused of posing as federal law enforcement employees and ingratiating themselves with Secret Service agents had visas for travel to Iran and Pakistan, and told others that he had ties to Pakistan’s intelligence service, a federal prosecutor alleged Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rothstein said the government wanted Haider Ali and Arian Taherzadeh — who were arrested Wednesday on charges of impersonating federal law enforcement, specifically with the Department of Homeland Security — held in jail while they await trial, alleging that they posed a flight risk and possessed firearms.

Taherzadeh, 40, and Ali, 35, were charged in what prosecutors described as a ruse that started in February 2020 and ended only after a postal inspector came across the pair in an unrelated case. Federal law enforcement officials did not say what motivated the men or what they wanted in return as they, according to prosecutors, “ingratiated themselves with and infiltrated” Secret Service agents and DHS personnel who lived in their D.C. apartment building.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1512156739331928081

 

[Pens1566]

Can't wait to hear more about this. Weirdest shit I've heard of outside of trashy novels/movies.

 

[Muse]

What boggles the mind is that those security people fell for this just based on those guys showing phony identification and then foisting lavish gifts upon them and I suppose more or less looking the part. WTH, aren't they suppose to run checks on people to make sure they aren't imposters or worse? Just nuts. At this point they don't seem to have any handle on who put these guys up to it and what their motivations were. Insanity.

 

[hal2kilo]

Secret Service needs a major enema.

 

[nakedfrog]

Uh, yeah, in the military I was taught about exactly that kind of behavior (ingratiating with gifts to curry favor) from potentially hostile agents, and I was essentially a nobody (albeit a nobody with a clearance). It seems unlikely that people in the Secret Service wouldn't have had the same kind of training, given they aren't exactly nobodies?

 

[cytg111]

I always take these things with a grain of salt. Its like with computer security, given enough time to study your target you will eventually find weakness, chinks in the armor as they say… given that I dont know how much effort and time was put into reversing this social construct and deliver payload… Of course you patch the hole but passing judgment on a bigger scope I cannot.

 

[tweaker2]

Under the theory that our secret service agents can't possibly be that dumb, I wonder if they were leading these two posers on while digging in to their identities and possible agendas.

Jus' say'in that it seems to be a plausible scenario.

 

[hal2kilo]

A good old boy club is what I would say is plausible.

A Timeline of the Secret Service's Embarrassments - The Atlantic