Iranian Agents Plotted to Kill Donald Trump, Justice Department Says
Failed plot highlights attempts to target U.S. officials
Iranian agents plotted to assassinate Donald Trump before he was re-elected as president, the Justice Department revealed Friday in a case that underscores the barrage of security threats Trump faces even before he takes office.
An Iranian operative told law enforcement that an official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard directed him in September to set aside his other duties and assemble a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said in court papers.
The operative, identified as Farhad Shakeri, warned the official that crafting such a plan would cost a huge amount of money. In response, the official said, “we have already spent a lot of money…money’s not an issue.” The official in October told Shakeri if he couldn’t pull together a plan within seven days, they would put the assassination plot on hold until after the election, believing Trump would lose and it would be easier to kill him then, the complaint says.
The failed plot, revealed just days after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, highlights what officials have described as ongoing attempts by Iran to target Trump, a top enemy of the regime. Federal prosecutors in August charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran with plotting to kill Trump, prompting officials to bolster his security while on the campaign trail. And in September, the Justice Department charged three Iranian operatives with trying to hack Trump’s campaign in an effort to undermine his election prospects.
Officials have long warned about Iran’s efforts to retaliate for the January 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Quds Force, the group responsible for Iran’s covert military operations abroad. Trump ordered the strike, which occurred in Baghdad, while he was in the White House. U.S. ties with Iran are expected to be even more strained during his second term, as Trump plans to increase sanctions as part of an aggressive strategy to undercut Tehran’s support of violent Mideast proxies and its nuclear program, the Journal reported.
Officials have been concerned in recent months that Iran appears to be escalating its attempts to commit violence against government officials, dissidents and political figures on U.S. soil.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
The newly unsealed complaint also says authorities disrupted another plot to kill Masih Alinejad, an activist and writer living in Brooklyn who has been vocally critical of Iran’s human-rights abuses, discrimination against women and use of imprisonment and torture against political opponents. She has been the target of several assassination plots thwarted by U.S. authorities.
Iran “has been conspiring with criminals and hit men to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil, and that simply won’t be tolerated,” Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said.
Shakeri, 51, and two others—Carlisle “Pop” Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island—were charged in what prosecutors described as a network of criminal associates tasked by Iran to further assassination plots on targets including Trump. The three were each charged with murder-for-hire and other related crimes. Court records don’t indicate who is representing the three.
Rivera and Loadholt were arrested and appeared in federal court Thursday; Shakeri remains at large in Iran. An Afghan national, he immigrated to the U.S. as a child and was deported around 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for robbery.
Prosecutors said Shakeri had recently recruited Rivera and Loadholt, whom he met in prison, to help participate in assassinations against other targets.
Investigators learned of the plot against Trump in a series of voluntary telephone interviews with Shakeri between late September and early November, according to court papers. Shakeri said he was in Tehran, and agreed to be interviewed in an effort to get a reduced sentence for another federal defendant serving time in the U.S. He spoke to agents on the phone at least five times, the document said.
He told agents in one of the conversations he didn’t intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within Iran’s tight time frame, according to the complaint.