Department of Justice files criminal complaint over Iran plot to kill Donald Trump

The Justice Department on Friday uncovered an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump and charged a man who said he was given the task by a government official before this week’s election of plotting to assassinate the Republican president-elect.

Investigators were told of the plot to kill Trump by Iranian government indictee Farhad Shakeri, who spent time in American prisons for theft and who authorities say established a network of Tehran-appointed accomplices for surveillance and murder-for-hire schemes.

According to the criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, Shakeri instructed the FBI to set aside other work done to him by a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard last September and develop a plan within seven days to spy on and eventually kill Trump. He said he gave it. .

Shakeri quoted the official as saying, “We have already spent a lot of money” and “money is not an issue.” Shakeri told investigators that the official told him that if he could not come up with a plan within a seven-day period, the plot would be stopped until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and it would then be easier to kill him. , the complaint said.

Shakeri is free and remains in Iran. Two other men were arrested on charges that Shakeri assigned them to track and kill Masih Alinejad, a prominent Iranian-American journalist who was the subject of multiple murder-for-hire plots that were thwarted by Iran’s law enforcement agencies.

“I was very surprised,” Alinejad told The Associated Press by phone from Berlin, where he was about to attend a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the wall. “This is the third attempt against me and it’s shocking.”

In a post on social media platform X, he said: “I came to America to exercise my First Amendment right to free speech – I don’t want to die. I want to fight against bullying and I deserve to be safe. “I thank law enforcement for protecting me, but I urge the U.S. government to protect America’s national security.”

Attorneys for the other two defendants, identified as Jonathan Loadholt and Carlisle Rivera, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Iran’s Mission to the UN declined to comment.

Shakeri, an Afghan citizen who immigrated to the United States as a child but was deported after serving 14 years in prison for robbery, also told investigators that he was tasked by his Revolutionary Guard contact to plan the murders of two American Jews living in New York. and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

Authorities say he aligned himself with Rivera and an unidentified co-conspirator while in prison.

The criminal complaint states that Shakeri disclosed some details of the alleged conspiracies in a series of recorded phone calls with FBI agents while in Iran. He told investigators that the stated reason for his cooperation was to try to reduce a prison sentence for a colleague behind bars in the United States.

Although authorities determined some of the information he provided was false, his statements about a conspiracy to kill Trump and Iran’s willingness to pay a large sum of money were found to be accurate, according to the complaint.

The plot, announced by the Justice Department just days after Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, is part of what federal officials describe as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. Last summer, for example, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot targeting American officials.

“There are few actors in the world who pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the case shows Iran “continues its brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, other government leaders and dissidents critical of the regime in Tehran,” including Trump.

Iranian operatives also conducted a hacking and leaking operation of emails belonging to Trump campaign associates, which authorities viewed as an effort to interfere with the presidential election and harm Trump’s campaign.

Iran opposes Trump’s re-election and thinks he is more likely to escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran, intelligence officials said. The Trump administration ended the nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions, and ordered the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani; This prompted Iranian leaders to swear revenge.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and that nothing would stop him from “returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world.”