The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges for individuals involved in a thwarted plot by Iran to kill President-elect Donald Trump before the election.
Three people were charged in the alleged Iran-backed murder-for-hire plot on Trump’s life.
The criminal complaint filed in Manhattan on Friday alleges an unnamed official in the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and kill Trump, according to the Associated Press.
The court filing states that the contact, Farjad Shakeri, was unable to create a plan in time before the election.
The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges on a thwarted plot by Iran to kill President-elect Donald Trump before the election.
The Iranian official told Shakeri that Iran would pause its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Trump would lose.
As a result, it would be easier to assassinate him then, the filing went on.
Shakeri, 51, of Iran still remains at-large while Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, were arrested in New York.
DOJ says Shakeri used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the U.S. to ‘supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets.’
According to the Justice Department, the IRGC has publicly stated its desire to ‘avenge the death of Soleimani.’
That includes hatching plots and conducting ‘attack operations outside Iran targeting U.S. citizens.’
Weeks before the election, the Trump campaign asked to use military planes and vehicles amid concerns that Iran was plotting to kill the former president.
Donald Trump has survived two recent assassination attempts and his officials asked for a string of extra protections during the final month of campaigning, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Those include traveling on military jets, extra flight restrictions over his residences and events, and prepositioning ballistic glass in battleground states for open-air rallies.
The requests were unprecedented for a presidential nominee.
In September, the Trump campaign revealed it had been briefed on the threat from Tehran.
‘Big threats on my life by Iran,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. ‘The entire US military is watching and waiting.
‘Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.’
Pictures released by the Justice Department after the thwarted attempt on Trump’s life
Trump assassination attempt pictures released by the government
Since then, a Pakistani national has been charged in connection with a ‘murder-for-hire’ plot to assassinate a politician or government official.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said it was ‘straight out of the Iranian regime’s playbook.’
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that there are ‘few actors’ in the world that ‘pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.’
‘The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.’
‘We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime. We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.’
Pictures released by DOJ about the thwarted assassination attempt
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