The US Justice Department on Friday revealed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he received instructions from a government official before this week’s election to plan the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plot to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, a suspected Iranian government asset who spent time in U.S. prisons for theft and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates involved in Tehran assassination plots. .
Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him last September to put together a plan in seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court.
According to Shakeri, the official told him that: “We have already spent a lot of money” and that “money is not a problem.” He told investigators that the official told him that if he couldn’t put together a plan within seven days, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and it would be easier to kill him then, according to the complaint.
Shakeri is a fugitive and remains in Iran. Two other men who authorities say were recruited to participate in other murders, including that of a prominent Iranian-American journalist who has been targeted in murder-for-hire plots, were arrested Friday.
“There are few actors in the world that represent as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran does,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The plan, and the charges revealed days after Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as Iran’s ongoing efforts to attack U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil.
Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot targeting U.S. officials.
Iranian operatives also carried out a hacking operation and leaked emails belonging to Trump campaign associates in what officials have assessed as an effort to interfere in the presidential election.
Intelligence officials have said Iran opposed Trump’s re-election, seeing it as more likely to increase tension 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 led Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and that nothing will deter him “from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world.”
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