- Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, are charged with impersonating federal law enforcement.
- They obtained firearms for their disguise, and bribed Secret Service targets with gifts, the feds allege.
- One of the alleged bribe targets was assigned to the First Lady's security detail.
The FBI has arrested two men in an alarming plot to bribe and gain access to members of federal law enforcement — including someone in Jill Biden's Secret Service detail.
Four members of the Secret Service have been placed on leave as a result of the investigation, officials said without releasing their names.
One Secret Service agent in the First Lady's detail was offered a $2,000 assault rifle by one of the men arrested, officials said. It's not clear if that agent is among those on leave.
According to an FBI affidavit filed Wednesday night in US District Court in DC, Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, began the plot by posing as Department of Homeland Security employees.
The two obtained handguns, rifles and other material as part of their disguise.
Then, over the past two years, they allegedly cozied up to unnamed members of federal law enforcement and the defense community. One was a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the First Lady, the affidavit alleges.
Taherzadeh treated members of the Secret Service and an actual employee of the DHS to a grab bag of valuable gifts, including free apartments and electronics and access to government vehicles, the feds charge.
According to the affidavit, the gifts included "rent-free apartments (with a total yearly rent of over $40,000 per apartment), iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat screen television, a case for storing an assault rifle, a generator, and law enforcement paraphernalia."
Taherzadeh allegedly offered to buy a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent in Biden's detail. Other federal employees, also unnamed, were offered what Taherzadeh described as government vehicles.
Both men are in custody and due to appear in court on Thursday.
