Justice Department announces charges in thwarted Iranian plot to kill Donald Trump before election

The Justice Department on Friday announced charges against three men, including an Iranian citizen who authorities say was tasked by the Iranian government with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump before the 2024 election.

What does the complaint say?

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran, was instructed in September by an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organization — to put together a plan to surveil and kill Trump before this week’s election.

If Shakeri was unable to put forth a plan within that time frame, the complaint alleges that the official told Shakeri that IRGC would "pause" its plan to kill Trump until after the election because the official believed that Trump would lose and that it would be "easier" to assassinate him then.

On Oct. 7, the complaint alleges Shakeri told the FBI that he didn’t intend to propose a plan to murder Trump within the seven days the IRGC official had requested.

The charges allege Iran is “actively targeting” U.S. citizens to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Qods Force of the IRGC who was killed by a drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

2 others charged in murder-for-hire plot

Shakeri and two other men Carlisle Rivera, also known as Pop, 49, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, N.Y., were also charged in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to murder a prominent Iranian American journalist described in the complaint as a “outspoken critic of the Iranian regime” and “target of multiple prior plots for kidnapping and/or murder directed by the Government of Iran.”

Masih Alinejad identified herself as the journalist that the men were allegedly targeting after the charges were unsealed. (Last month, U.S. prosecutors charged four men, including a senior IRGC member, in connection with a failed 2022 plot to assassinate Alinejad.)

The complaint details messages and photographs shared by the three men while they surveilled the journalist, referred to as Victim-1, outside her Brooklyn home and at an event at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

According to the FBI, Shakeri “sent Rivera a series of voice notes discussing their efforts to locate and kill Victim-1. In one voice note, Shakeri told Rivera that Victim-1 spent most of her time in particular locations of her home, and told Rivera that ‘you just gotta have patience … You gotta wait and have patience to catch her either going in the house or coming out, or following her out somewhere and taking care of it. Don’t think about going in. In is a suicide move.’”

What charges are they facing?

Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt have all been charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering. The murder-for-hire charges each carry maximum penalties of 10 years in prison. Money laundering carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

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. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Shakeri is believed to reside in Tehran and remains at large, the FBI said. Rivera and Loadholt made their initial appearance in court Thursday and were ordered detained pending trial.

Trump has not yet commented publicly on the case.

What did the DOJ and FBI say?

“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release announcing the charges. “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.”

“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,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps 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.”