Justice Department files charges in murder-for-hire scheme targeting Trump

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice on Friday charged an Iranian man in a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate then-candidate Donald Trump and two others in a plot to kill an American journalist critical of Tehran.

Iran’s government directed these actors to “target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release.

The department said the plot was part of Iran’s efforts to exact revenge for the death of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani during the Trump administration.

The three who were charged are Farhad Shakeri of Iran; Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathan Loadholt, of Staten Island, New York.

According to the criminal complaint, an official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military and counterintelligence agency designated as a terrorist organization by the first Trump administration, told Shakeri in mid-to-late September to focus on surveilling and assassinating Trump.

Shakeri told the Iranian official that it would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the complaint alleges, adding that he understood that Iran was “willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt” to have Trump killed.

Around Oct. 7, the Iranian official tasked Shakeri with providing a plan within seven days to kill Trump, he told law enforcement in recorded interviews, the complaint says.

The Iranian official warned Shakeri that if he was unable to offer an assassination plot by the deadline, then the IRGC would “pause its plan to kill [Trump] until after the U.S. presidential elections” because the official assessed that Trump would “lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate [Trump],” the complaint alleges. Shakeri told FBI officials that he didn’t intend to propose a plan to assassinate Trump in the timeframe set by the IRGC, it says.

Shakeri was also directed to surveil and murder two Jewish Americans living in New York City and target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

Shakeri spoke to federal agents five times since the end of September, including the day after he was tasked with killing Trump. Shakeri was allegedly trying to curry favor with federal investigators to help get a sentence reduction for a person currently in prison in the United States.

Trump communications director Steven Cheung said Friday that the president-elect is aware of the attempted assassination plot. “Nothing will deter President Trump from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world,” he said.

Prosecutors allege Shakeri is "an IRGC asset" living in Tehran and is an Afghan national who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. Around 2008, he was deported from the U.S. after serving about 14 years in New York State prisons following a robbery conviction in 1994.

They said Rivera was arrested in Brooklyn and Loadholt in Staten Island on Thursday. Prosecutors allege they were recruited as part of a criminal network to kill an American journalist known to be a strong critic of the Iranian regime and its human rights abuses. Journalist Masih Alinejad identified herself to NBC News as the person who was targeted.

A search of Loadholt’s cloud account showed photographs of him holding two pistols, and a cloud account for Rivera showed multiple semi-automatic rifles and a shotgun. The two allegedly surveilled Alinejad on numerous occasions.

In a post on X Friday, Alinejad said she was "shocked" by the news and learned from the FBI that Loadholt and Rivera were arrested in a plot to kill her at Fairfield University, where she was scheduled to give a talk.

"I also learned that the person assigned to assassinate @realDonaldTrump was also assigned to kill me on U.S. soil," she wrote. "The alleged killers also went in front of my house in Brooklyn. I call on the U.S. government and the future President of the United States to be tough on terror."

"The Islamic Republic understands only one language: the language of pressure," she wrote. "I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to freedom of speech — I don’t want to die. I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe."

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. We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said 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."

Trump survived two assassination attempts while running for president — one in July at a campaign rally and another in September while he was on one of his golf courses in Florida. In the weeks leading to the first attempt, the Biden administration had obtained intelligence about an Iranian assassination plot against Trump, which led to the Secret Service intensifying security around the former president.

Trump was also briefed by U.S. intelligence officials after the attempt in September about threats from Iran to kill him.

The three defendants were charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering. The charges carry a maximum of 40 years in prison.

Shakeri is believed to have found his co-defendants by tapping into a network of criminal associates he had met while he served time in prison in New York.

Shakeri was also charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a terrorist organization, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions on the Iranian government. Those charges in total carry a maximum of 60 years in prison.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com