The FBI raided a luxury apartment building in Washington, D.C. yesterday and arrested two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36, for a concerning plot.

FBI confirms these photos are the scene of the arrest of Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, accused of impersonating federal agents to infiltrate the Secret Service. @wusa9 https://t.co/lAAaYzldYB

— Bruce Leshan (@BruceLeshan) April 7, 2022

The men had been pretending to be federal agents — members of a Homeland Security task force — since February 2020. They claimed that they were part of a unit investigating the Jan. 6 riot in addition to other actions.

But over that time, they tried to ingratiate themselves with the Secret Service by showering various members with gifts, including providing one with a rent-free luxury apartment (that rented for $40,000 a year), iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, a flat-screen television, a generator, a gun case, and other policing tools, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

They even offered one agent who worked on Jill Biden’s security detail a $2,000 rifle and loaned a car, which they said was a government vehicle, to that agent’s wife.

It’s not clear if the fake agents had any access to Jill Biden or any other Secret Service protectee. Four Secret Service agents have been placed on leave as a result.

They even “fake” hired someone to work for the DHS and assigned that person to “research” an unnamed person who worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community. They also shot that person with an airsoft gun as part of the “hiring process” to test the person’s tolerance for pain.

They also told other residents in their apartment building that they had surveillance on the building so they could access everyone’s phone and personal information.

They were finally uncovered during an investigation of an assault at their apartment building by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and they were interviewed. They also reportedly used several apartments in the building.

The two men were charged with impersonating federal law enforcement and obtaining handguns, rifles, and other materials to pose as Homeland Security agents.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declined to respond and referred people to the Secret Service for comment.

"I’d point you to the Secret Service and others investigating,” WH press sec. Jen Psaki tells @marykbruce after two men allegedly provided gifts to four Secret Service members, including one member who was on first lady Jill Biden's protective detail. https://t.co/AMetd4E9sS pic.twitter.com/lsckyc0rKl

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 7, 2022

Now, this isn’t just weird, it’s incredibly dangerous and concerning that they were able to do this and that they could have gotten so close to the Secret Service agents, not to mention one who is on Jill Biden’s detail. And the fact that the agents were taken in or effectively accepted bribes is also very troubling. Were they not even bothering to check who these characters were?

But it leads to a lot of speculation as to what was going on here, what the ultimate aim of the plot was, and who would have the money to pull all this off for such a long period? And if there are these two people are there any more?

In court on Thursday, more information came out:

“The FBI allegedly found body armor, gas masks, tactical law enforcement gear, a drone, binoculars, a binder with a list of every resident in the apartment complex (which the government says contains many members of law enforcement the defense community), ammunition and scopes for firearms, as well as multiple handguns,” according to a U.S. Attorney in court.

Details of the court proceedings also revealed that Ali allegedly claimed to have connections to ISI, which is the Pakistani Intelligence Service, and three Pakistani and two Iranian visas were also found.

Now, the original purpose couldn’t have been to get close to Jill Biden, since there was no way of knowing she’d be there when they started this in February 2020, but it was to get close to the Secret Service and fool them into trusting them. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the alleged plot started the month after President Donald Trump had Qasem Soleimani taken out in January 2020.

Hopefully, the investigation gets to the bottom of this and we figure out what the aim here was.