# The United States engineered the 2022 ouster of Pakistani PM Imran Khan through a secret diplomatic cable, the 'cypher'

**No verdict.** The cable is real and, in the text published by The Intercept, records a U.S. official voicing displeasure with Khan's Russia stance and suggesting relations would improve if he were removed. But 'the United States engineered his ouster' is a much larger claim the record does not establish: Khan was voted out by Pakistan's own parliament after losing his coalition and his army backing, and two of Pakistan's own security bodies found no evidence of a foreign conspiracy. Genuinely documented pressure, contested conclusion.

Category: Government & Intelligence · Era: 2020s · First circulated: March 2022 · Believed by: Widely held among Imran Khan's PTI supporters in Pakistan and across the Pakistani diaspora
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/imran-khan-cypher-plot

## Summary
In March 2022, weeks before he lost a no-confidence vote, Prime Minister Imran Khan told a rally that a foreign power, which he soon named as the United States, was conspiring to remove him, and he waved a paper he called proof: a classified diplomatic cable, the 'cypher.' A real cable does exist, and the text later published by The Intercept records a senior U.S. official expressing displeasure with Khan's neutrality on the Ukraine war and indicating that relations would warm if he were gone. What remains contested is the leap from that documented displeasure to the claim that Washington orchestrated his removal. Pakistan's parliament, army, and coalition politics drove the ouster, and Pakistan's own official bodies rejected the conspiracy finding.

## The claim
That Imran Khan's removal as prime minister of Pakistan in April 2022 was not the result of ordinary domestic politics but a regime-change operation run by the United States, communicated through a threatening diplomatic cable and executed via a bought-and-paid-for no-confidence vote, in retaliation for Khan's neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his February 2022 visit to Moscow.

## Origin and timeline
- 2022-02-24: Imran Khan lands in Moscow for a state visit on the same day Russia invades Ukraine, an image that sharpens Western unease about Pakistan's 'aggressively neutral' line on the war.
- 2022-03-07: Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, meets senior U.S. State Department official Donald Lu. The ambassador's account of that meeting is encrypted and cabled home to Islamabad: the document that becomes the 'cypher.'
- 2022-03-08: The combined opposition formally files its no-confidence motion against Khan in the National Assembly, setting the removal process in motion.
- 2022-03-27: At a large Islamabad rally, Khan pulls a folded paper from his pocket and waves it, telling the crowd it is evidence of a foreign conspiracy to topple his government. He does not read the text aloud but soon points explicitly at the United States.
- 2022-03-31: The National Security Committee, chaired by Khan, reviews the cable and decides to issue a 'strong demarche' to an unnamed country over what it calls 'blatant interference' in Pakistan's internal affairs.
- 2022-04-10: In a session running past midnight, the National Assembly votes Khan out, 174 in favor. He is the first Pakistani prime minister removed by a no-confidence vote; Shehbaz Sharif replaces him.
- 2022-04-22: A reconstituted National Security Committee, now under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, meets again and states that it found no evidence of any foreign conspiracy behind Khan's removal.
- 2023-08-09: The Intercept publishes what it says is the full text of the cypher, cable I-0678, reigniting the debate and giving Khan's long-running claim a documentary spine.
- 2023-2024: Now out of power and facing dozens of cases, Khan is prosecuted over the cable itself in the 'cipher case,' convicted, sentenced to ten years, and later acquitted on appeal.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: A real, threatening cable proves the United States demanded Khan's removal.
  Evidence: A real cable does exist, and in the text published by The Intercept in 2023, U.S. official Donald Lu tells the Pakistani ambassador that Washington and Europe are concerned about Pakistan's neutrality, and that 'if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven,' while warning of isolation otherwise. That is documented diplomatic pressure and displeasure. It is not, on its face, an order to Pakistan's parliament, and a foreign official saying relations would improve after a domestic vote is not the same as that official arranging the vote.
- Claim: Pakistan's own government confirmed the conspiracy when it issued a formal protest.
  Evidence: Under Khan, the National Security Committee did issue a 'strong demarche' on 31 March 2022 over 'blatant interference.' But interference-and-displeasure and engineered-ouster are different findings. When the same body met again on 22 April under the new government, it stated it had found no evidence of any foreign conspiracy behind the removal. Pakistan's own institutions thus recorded a complaint about pressure and a rejection of the conspiracy claim, not a confirmation of it.
- Claim: Khan fell because Washington willed it, not because of anything at home.
  Evidence: The mechanics of the fall were domestic and visible. Khan had lost his parliamentary majority when coalition allies defected to the opposition, and he had publicly fallen out with the powerful army leadership under General Qamar Javed Bajwa, long the real arbiter of Pakistani politics. The 174 votes against him were cast by Pakistani legislators in Pakistan's National Assembly. Khan himself later shifted much of his blame onto Bajwa and the army rather than the United States.
- Claim: The U.S. official at the center of it admitted running the plot.
  Evidence: Donald Lu did the opposite. Testifying before a U.S. House subcommittee in March 2024, he called the allegation 'a lie' and 'a complete falsehood,' said the cable at no point accused the U.S. government or him personally of moving against Khan, and noted that the ambassador who wrote it, Asad Majeed Khan, had told his own government there was no conspiracy. Lu also said the affair brought death threats against him and his family.
- Claim: The cable was so damning that Pakistan jailed Khan just for exposing it.
  Evidence: Khan was prosecuted in the 'cipher case' under the Official Secrets Act, and the charge was mishandling and misusing a classified document for political gain, not that its contents were true. He was sentenced to ten years in January 2024, but the Islamabad High Court acquitted him in that case in June 2024. The prosecution turned on the handling of the cable, a separate question from whether the United States actually engineered his removal.

## Why people believe it
- There is a real document at the core. Unlike theories built on rumor, this one has a genuine classified cable and a published text in which a U.S. official does express displeasure and does link Khan's removal to warmer ties. That kernel of truth makes the larger claim feel already half-proven.
- The timing lines up almost too neatly: a Moscow visit as the tanks rolled, a pointed meeting in Washington days later, a no-confidence motion, and an ouster inside six weeks. A sequence that tight invites the mind to read cause where there may be correlation.
- It fits a real and bitter history. The United States has interfered in the internal politics of other countries, including in the region, and Pakistanis have long experienced Washington as a transactional patron. A charge of American meddling lands on well-prepared ground.
- Khan is a charismatic, still-popular leader telling the story from a prison cell, which frames him as a martyr silenced for exposing the truth. Persecution reads as corroboration: if the cable were harmless, why jail him over it?
- The counter-evidence comes from tainted messengers. The bodies that found 'no conspiracy' answered to the government that replaced Khan, and the denial came from the U.S. State Department itself, so to a supporter every rebuttal is issued by an interested party and can be discounted.

## Open questions
- How much weight should a foreign power's stated preference carry? Lu's reported words show Washington wanted Khan gone and signaled a reward for his removal. Reasonable people differ on whether voicing such a preference to a diplomat is ordinary great-power pressure or something closer to interference, even when no operation follows.
- The relationship between the army and the ouster is only partly public. Khan's break with the military leadership is well documented, but exactly how far the establishment coordinated the no-confidence push, and whether it acted with any regard to U.S. preferences, remains contested and incompletely sourced.
- The cypher's chain of custody and the missing original have never been fully resolved in public. Questions about what happened to the copy held at the Prime Minister's House, and how the classified text reached The Intercept, sit unanswered beneath the political fight.

## Sources
- Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan, The Intercept (2023): https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/
- Leaked 'cipher' hints at US pressure over Russia visit, Dawn (2023): https://www.dawn.com/news/1769320
- Did US ask for Imran Khan's removal as Pakistan PM after he visited Russia?, Al Jazeera (2023): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/10/did-us-ask-for-imran-khans-removal-as-pakistan-pm-after-he-visited-russia
- Purported Text of Secret Cable Shows US Ire at Imran Khan, Voice of America (2023): https://www.voanews.com/a/purported-text-of-secret-cable-shows-us-ire-at-imran-khan-/7219123.html
- Imran Khan: Pakistan Prime Minister voted out of office, CNN (2022): https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/09/asia/imran-khan-voted-out-pakistan-prime-minister-intl-hnk
- National Security Committee finds no foreign conspiracy in telegram, The Nation (2022): https://www.nation.com.pk/23-Apr-2022/national-security-committee-finds-no-foreign-conspiracy-in-telegram
- US Congressional hearing: Donald Lu dubs Imran's cipher allegation 'conspiracy theory, complete falsehood', Dawn (2024): https://www.dawn.com/news/1822769
- What is the cipher case?, Dawn (2024): https://www.dawn.com/news/1809800
- Former Pakistan leader Imran Khan is sentenced to 10 years ahead of election, NBC News (2024): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pakistan-court-sentences-former-prime-minister-imran-khan-10-years-rcna136309
- Ex-Pakistan PM Imran Khan acquitted in state secrets case but to stay in jail, Gulf News (2024): https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/ex-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-acquitted-in-state-secrets-case-but-to-stay-in-jail-1.102943350

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