DOJ announces charges in Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump

(CNN) — The Justice Department on Friday announced federal charges in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before the presidential election.

According to court documents, Iranian officials asked Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump. Shakeri is still at large in Iran, the Justice Department said.

This is a newly disclosed plot and marks yet another alleged attempt on Trump’s life by the Iranian regime.

Prosecutors allege Shakeri – who participated in recorded conversations with law enforcement – was originally tasked by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to carrying out other assassinations against US and Israeli citizens inside the US. But IRGC officials told Shakeri on October 7 to focus only on Trump, court documents say, and that he had seven days to formulate an assassination plan.

Shakeri, who is an Afghan national residing in Tehran, told investigators that if he was unable to do come up with a plan in that timeframe, the IRGC would wait until after the presidential election to move forward as they believed Trump would lose.

Two other individuals charged on Friday, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, who are American citizens, were arrested in New York and are accused of helping the Iranian government surveil a separate US citizen of Iranian origin. They made their initial appearance in court on Thursday, the Justice Department said, and are being detained pending trial.

Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, in statements released Friday, denounced the continued threats from the Iranian government against individuals in the United States.

“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Garland said. “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.”

Iran has “categorically dismissed” the Justice Department’s allegation.

The Foreign Ministry, posting on social media platform X on Saturday, described the claims as “completely baseless and rejected,” adding that “similar accusations have been made in the past,” which Iran has “firmly denied and proven false.” The claims amount to a “malicious conspiracy” aimed at “further complicating the issues between the US and Iran,” the ministry said.

The US government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran may try to retaliate for a 2020 US drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a top general in the IRGC, by trying to kill Trump, who ordered the strike, or his former advisers.

In a series of five interviews with the FBI, Shakeri said that he met a senior member of the IRGC through his work in the Iranian oil and fuel business. When the official learned Shakeri had previously lived in New York, he asked for help “investigating” individuals in the United States. Shakeri said he met with the official more than a dozen times in meetings at different restaurants.

According to court documents, Shakeri relied on “network of criminal associates” he met during his time in New York’s prison system to supply Iranian officials with operatives in the US and to help run surveillance and plot assassinations on their behalf.

Shakeri would pay these criminal associates, like his two co-conspirators, to monitor the victims Iranian officials sought to assassinate, according to court documents. Iranian-American journalist and political activist Masih Alinejad confirmed Friday that she was one of the victims targeted.

Alinejad has been the target of several assassination plots, according to the Justice Department.

The two defendants allegedly monitored Alinejad at a speaking event earlier this year, as well as at her home in New York.

In one voice memo between the defendants, Rivera told the others, “This b*tch is hard to catch, bro. And because she hard to catch, there ain’t gonna be no simple pull up, unless there the luck of the draw. Unless there’s the luck of the draw.”

In other memos, the defendants discussed where Alinejad spent her time in her home and how best to carry out and assassination.

According to the complaint, Rivera and Loadholt discussed a payment of $100,000 with Shakeri to “take care of it already,” but wanted the payment upfront.

IRGC officials, prosecutors say, also asked Shakeri to help plan a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, prompting US and Sri Lankann authorities to warn travelers about threats of an attack. Shakeri also said he was tasked with surveilling and assassinating two individuals described only as Jewish businesspeople living in New York City.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that all three men were specifically charged in the plot against Donald Trump.

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CNN’s Sandi Sidhu and Edward Szekeres contributed to this report.