DOJ files charges in Iranian murder plot against TrumpExBulletin

Former President Donald Trump is reflected in bulletproof glass as he finishes his speech at a campaign rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, November 3. Matt Rourke/AP .

switch captionMatt Rourke/AP

WASHINGTON The Justice Department on Friday revealed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he was instructed by a government official before this week's election to plan the president-elect's assassination republican.

Investigators were tipped off about the Trump assassination plan by Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government agent who spent time in U.S. prisons on theft charges and who authorities say maintained a network of criminal associates conscripted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.

Shakeri told the FBI that a contact within Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards asked him last September to put aside any other work he was doing and come up with a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to an unsealed criminal complaint in Manhattan federal court. .

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

Shakeri is at large and remains in Iran. Two other men were arrested on charges that Shakeri recruited them to follow and kill prominent Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who was the victim of several Iranian murder-for-hire plots foiled by law enforcement.

“I'm very shocked,” Alinejad said, speaking by telephone to The Associated Press from Berlin, where she was preparing to attend a ceremony marking the anniversary of the fall of the wall. This is the third attempt on me and it's shocking.

In a post on social media platform tyranny and I deserve to be safe. Thank you to 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. The Iranian mission to the UN declined to comment.

Shakeri, an Afghan national who immigrated to the United States as a child but was later deported after spending 14 years in prison for theft, also told investigators he was charged by his contact with the Guardians of the Revolution to plan the murder of two American Jews living in New York. York and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. Officials say he was around Rivera while incarcerated as well as an unidentified co-conspirator.

The criminal complaint says Shakeri disclosed some details of the alleged plots in a series of recorded telephone interviews with FBI agents while they were in Iran. The stated reason for his cooperation, he told investigators, was to try to get a reduced prison sentence for an associate behind bars in the United States.

According to the complaint, although authorities determined that some of the information he provided was false, his statements about a plot to kill Trump and Iran's willingness to pay large sums of money were found to be accurate. .

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

There are few actors in the world that pose as serious a threat to U.S. national security as Iran, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the case showed Iran's brazen and relentless attempts to target American citizens, including Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the Tehran regime.

Iranian agents also conducted a hacking and leaking operation of emails belonging to Trump campaign associates, which officials viewed as an attempt to interfere in the presidential election and harm Trump's campaign.

Intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trump's reelection, seeing it as likely to increase tensions between Washington and Tehran. The Trump administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iranian leaders to vow revenge.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect knew about the assassination plot and nothing would stop him from returning to the White House and restoring world peace.

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