On November 8, the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement providing further details on the Iranian regime’s efforts to assassinate U.S. President-elect Donald Trump before the November 5 election.
According to the statement, a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan federal court indicates that an unnamed official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) instructed an operative, identified as Farhad Shakeri, in September to devise a plan to monitor and ultimately assassinate Trump.
The Department of Justice stated that the IRGC official informed Shakeri that if he could not carry out the assassination before the election, the plot would be postponed until after the election, as Trump was expected to lose, which would make it easier to assassinate him.
The statement mentions that Shakeri had previously informed the FBI that he did not intend to submit an assassination plan within the seven-day deadline imposed by the IRGC official.
The U.S. government had earlier confirmed that the Iranian regime sought revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, by targeting Donald Trump and several members of his first administration, including Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, and John Bolton.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Iranian, Carlisle Rivera (known as “Pop”), a 49-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, a 36-year-old from Staten Island, New York, were charged on Friday for involvement in a plot to assassinate an Iranian-American citizen in New York.
Rivera and Loadholt were arrested on Thursday, November 7, and appeared in the Southern District of New York court. They will remain in custody until trial, while Farhad Shakeri remains at large, likely residing in Iran.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. 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. 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.”
Christopher Wray, FBI Director, also commented: “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. 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. Thanks to the hard work of the FBI, their deadly schemes were disrupted. We’re committed to using the full resources of the FBI to protect our citizens from Iran or any other adversary who targets Americans.”
Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, added: “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. 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. I want to thank the career prosecutors of this office and our law enforcement partners for their ongoing work in this and related investigations. They are truly the best of the best and work tirelessly to keep our country safe.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Shakeri, an IRGC agent residing in Tehran, migrated to the United States as a child and was deported around 2008 after serving a 14-year sentence for theft.
The DOJ statement adds that in recent months, Shakeri leveraged a network of criminals he met in U.S. prisons to recruit individuals for the IRGC’s espionage and assassination operations.
Shakeri informed law enforcement officers that on October 7, 2024, he was ordered to devise a plan to assassinate U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump. He told officers he did not intend to carry out the plan within the IRGC’s specified timeframe. Shakeri also reported that he had been tasked with spying on two Jewish-American citizens in New York, with an IRGC official offering $500,000 for the assassination of each individual. He was additionally instructed to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
