On Friday (Nov. 8), the Department of Justice revealed charges against three individuals in connection with an Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump before the presidential election, reported CNN. It’s the latest since three other alleged attempts on the president-elect, all of which took place during his 2024 campaign.
According to Manhattan federal prosecutors, the primary suspect charged with murder-for-hire is Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national based in Iran, where he presumably remains at large. He was allegedly directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to focus specifically on Trump in September, giving him a seven-day window to develop an assassination plan. If unsuccessful within that time frame, the IRGC planned to wait until after the election, believing Trump would lose.
Two American citizens, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, were arrested in New York for their alleged role in a separate murder-for-hire plot — a U.S. journalist of Iranian origin who has openly criticized the Iranian government. The two appeared in the Southern District of New York on Thursday (Nov. 7) and remain behind bars as they await trial.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a press release. “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.”
The plot was discovered through FBI interviews with Shakeri, who revealed his connection to the IRGC through his work in the Iranian oil industry. Shakeri allegedly leveraged contacts from his time in New York's prison system to build a network of operatives for surveillance and assassination planning. This network was involved in monitoring several targets, including Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.
In one revealing exchange, Rivera was recorded saying, "This b**ch is hard to catch, bro. And because she hard to catch, there ain't gonna be no simple pull up… unless there’s the luck of the draw." The defendants reportedly discussed a $100,000 payment with Shakeri for carrying out an assassination. In addition to these plots, Shakeri was also allegedly tasked with planning a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka and surveilling two Jewish businesspeople in New York City.