The Secret Service sure picked a convenient time to take a couple of years off, eh?

The Justice Department has charged a Pakistani man who has alleged ties to the Iranian government with seeking to carry out political assassinations, a case that prompted the US government to increase security for former President Donald Trump and other officials, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

FBI investigators believe that Trump and other current and former US government officials were the intended targets of the plot, a US official briefed on the matter said.

Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of traveling to New York City and working with a hit man to carry out the assassinations in late August or early September, according to charges filed by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York.

Merchant was arrested on July 12 while preparing to leave the United States, prosecutors said, shortly after he met with purported hitmen who he believed would carry the murders but were actually undercover law enforcement officers. He is in federal custody.

The FBI investigated the alleged international murder-for-hire plot in the weeks before a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania nearly assassinated the former president at one of his rallies. A law enforcement official told CNN that investigators have not found evidence that Merchant had any connection to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The Secret Service decided to skimp on assets and counter-snipers during this period.

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The plot revealed by US prosecutors on Tuesday adds to a growing list of detailed Iranian plans to allegedly kill Trump, according to national security officials.

The US government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran may try to retaliate for a 2020 US drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a top general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by trying to kill Trump or his former advisers.