The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against a man identified as an “Iranian asset” and two others in the greater New York area who, prosecutors say, were “actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies” for assassination, including President-elect Donald Trump.
The indictment identifies four victims, including Trump, of the alleged conspirators: the president-elect, an unnamed Iranian dissident activist, and two unnamed Jewish-Americans. The defendant identified as an “Iranian asset,” Farhad Shakeri, allegedly maintained ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an arm of the Iranian military that Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.
Shakeri, believed to be still at large and believed to be in Iran, reportedly told American law enforcement agents that the IRGC asked him to organize a plan to assassinate Trump, but that he had missed the deadline to do so. The IRGC would then allegedly wait until after the 2024 presidential election to kill Trump, expecting him to lose the presidential race and, with it, significant security protection.
Instead, Trump won the election on Tuesday in a landslide, becoming the second president in American history elected to two non-consecutive terms in office.
The Iranian government, an Islamist terror regime, has claimed for years to be prosecuting Trump and several officials from his first administration in response to an airstrike that eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the then-head of the IRGC Quds Force, in 2020. The Quds Force is the foreign terrorism wing of the IRGC and Soleimani was responsible for hundreds of American deaths and death around the world. The IRGC reportedly published a video threatening Trump’s life shortly after the election.
According to the indictment, based on the testimony of an FBI agent, the three individuals involved in the conspiracy with Iran are Shakeri, still at large, and two New Yorkers: Carlisle “Pop” Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt. The men are believed to have met in prison; Shakeri served 14 years in an American prison for robbery and was deported in 2008.
“The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies living in countries around the world for attacks, including assault, kidnapping, and murder,” the indictment read. Much of the focus of the evidence is on the stalking and threatening of “Victim-1,” an Iranian dissident reports have identified as possibly being women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. The FBI presented communications between the suspects that indicated Shakeri was paying the others to stalk “Victim-1,” including at public events and her home, and was frustrated because she offered few opportunities to easily kill her without getting caught.
The issue of Trump’s potential assassination arose in interviews that Shakeri reportedly participated in with law enforcement agents. Shakeri claimed to be in contact and acting under the orders of an unnamed IRGC agent, who in September asked him “to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”
The IRGC terrorist reportedly stated that “money’s not an issue” to organize the resources to kill him. He allegedly asked Shakeri to draft a plot to kill Trump in a week. If he did not do so, the IRGC terrorist reportedly said “the IRGC would pause its plan to kill Victim-4 [Trump] until after the U.S. Presidential elections, because IRGC Official-I assessed that Victim-4 would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate Victim-4.”
The three defendants are facing a string of criminal charges including murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering. Shakeri, due to his alleged direct connection to the IRGC, is also facing a charge of aiding a foreign terrorist organization and of violating sanctions on Iran.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement to the press on Friday. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organization — has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil and that simply won’t be tolerated.”
“Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad. This has to stop,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York added. “Today’s charges are another message to those who continue in their efforts – we will remain unrelenting in our pursuit of bad actors, no matter where they reside, and will stop at nothing to bring to justice those who harm our safety and security.”
The Iranian terrorist regime has repeatedly threatened to kill Trump, often referencing the elimination of Soleimani. In late 2020, the regime claimed to “indict” Trump for the airstrike; in December 2023, Iran demanded the U.S. government pay $50 billion in damages for the Soleimani strike.
At Soleimani’s funeral, a speaker attempted to crowdsource $80 million to place a bounty on Trump’s life.
“If everyone anywhere in the world supports our initiative in Mashhad, on behalf of all of Iran’s people — 80 million Iranians — and each puts aside $1 US, it would equal $80 million,” the speaker said in footage from the funeral.
This week, an alleged IRGC video surfaced on social media in which the state terror organization promised to “finish” the failed assassination attempt on Trump in July.
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