The details of an unsealed Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump raise questions about how the current administration will act, as President Joe Biden previously warned Iran that the United States would consider its targeting of the Republican nominee as an “act of war.”
According to a Friday statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri has been charged with planning an Iranian murder plot against Trump ahead of the U.S. presidential election. Shakeri, who is still at large and reportedly resides in Iran, was ordered by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to carry out the task.
Two other men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, were also charged. The men had been recruited to murder an Iranian American journalist who has been critical of Iran’s regime, prosecutors allege.
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As the department noted, the Iranian government is targeting nationals and allies of the U.S. to suppress criticism of the Iranian regime and seek vengeance for the 2020 killing of the former Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quad Force, Qasem Soleimani. The former head of the IRGC-QF was killed in a U.S. military strike in Baghdad.
“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.
“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,” he continued. “We’re committed to using the full resources of the FBI to protect our citizens from Iran or any other adversary who targets Americans.”
As the criminal complaint outlines, the IRGC ordered Shakeri in September to “put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”
A member of the IRGC instructed the asset to formulate a plan to murder “Victim-4,” which refers to Trump. The IRGC member said if Shakeri could not come up with a plan by the deadline, then the IRGC would wait to kill him after the election, thinking that Trump would lose and he’d be easier to kill.
In October, the Biden administration warned the Iranian government to stop making plans to target Trump, stating that Washington would consider assassination attempts against the Republican nominee an “act of war.” A U.S. official told Reuters at the time that Biden had been briefed about Iran’s plots against Americans and directed his team to address the issue.
Regarding the recent report about Iran’s plot to kill Trump, it is unclear how the Biden administration intends to respond. The White House did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Shakeri is an Afghan national who came to the U.S. as a child, and he was deported around 2008 after serving time in a New York State prison for a 1994 armed robbery conviction, according to the criminal complaint. The IRGC asset supplies the Iranian military agency with contacts from a network of criminal associates Shakeri met during his time in prison, providing them with operatives to conduct surveillance or assassinate targets.
Rivera and Loadholt were part of Shakeri’s network of criminal associates, the complaint states. The journalist that the pair intended to murder, Masih Alinejad, has written extensively about human rights abuses committed by the Iranian government.
“I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to freedom of speech — I don’t want to die,” Alinejad wrote in a Friday X post. “I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe. Thank you to law enforcement for protecting me, but I urge the U.S. government to protect the national security of America.”
Esmail Baghaei, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, claimed the DOJ’s statement is part of a pro-Israel plot to complicate relations between the U.S. and Iran, The Associated Press reported.
“Repeat of the accusation in the current time span is a disgusting plot by the Zionist and anti-Iran circles that has aimed at making US-Iran problems more complicated,” Baghaei said.
Last Monday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican, wrote a letter urging Biden to end “bureaucratic delays” and support Israel amid increasing threats from Iran.
“It is apparent that Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, are attempting to exploit perceived divisions between the United States and Israel, exacerbated by recent actions of senior Biden-Harris administration officials,” McCaul stated.
“It is imperative that you act now to deter our adversaries by showing that there is no daylight between the United States and Israel.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
