US presses charges in alleged Iran IRGC plot to kill Trump: What we know
The US Department of Justice unsealed on Friday the details of a criminal case in connection with an IRGC-backed plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump.
The United States Department of Justice announced it is pressing criminal charges after the FBI uncovered an Iran-backed plan to surveil and assassinate US citizens including President-elect Donald Trump.
According to a Friday press release from the DOJ, three men were charged in the Southern District of New York in connection with a plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. The DOJ listed the men as Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran, Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, New York and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York.
Rivera and Loadholt are in custody but Shakeri remains at large. He is suspected to be in Iran, was also allegedly tasked with assassinating other US citizens — he was offered $500,000 by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to kill two unspecified Jewish Americans in New York — as well as targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. Most notably, Shakeri was tasked with assisting in the assassination of Trump.
According to the complaint, in September, an official from the IRGC — Iran's powerful military force that reports directly to Iran’s supreme leader — allegedly tasked Shakeri with formulating a plan to assassinate Trump. Around Oct. 7, 2024, the official told Shakeri to provide the plan within seven days. If Shakeri was unable to create a plan by then, the complaint read, the official told him Iran would wait until after the presidential election, believing Trump would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him afterward.
But in recorded interviews with law enforcement agents, Shakeri said he did not intend to propose a plan to kill Trump within the timeframe set by the IRGC.
“The charges announced today expose Iran's continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday.
Wray added that the IRGC “has been conspiring with criminals and hit men to target and gun down Americans on US soil and that simply won’t be tolerated.”
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.”
Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt have been charged with murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and money laundering conspiracy.
Shakeri has also been charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the government of Iran.
The charges announced Friday are not the first brought against alleged IRGC operatives for plotting to kill Trump. Earlier this year, the FBI arrested a Pakistani man with alleged IRGC ties, Asif Merchant, for planning to assassinate US government officials, including Trump.
