The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday said they uncovered and stopped an Iranian-linked scheme to kill Donald Trump before he was re-elected president.
As ABC News reported, the DOJ charged Iranian national Farhad Shakeri along with Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt with murder-for-hire. Rivera and Loadhold have been arrested while Shakeri remains at large.
The DOJ believes Shakeri, an alleged asset of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is in Tehran potentially under the protection of the Iranian regime.
Iranian officials in September allegedly demanded Shakeri surveil and ultimately assassinate Trump ONE MONTH before the presidential election.
ABC News notes that the complaint states that the IRGC ordered Shakeri to kill Trump to avenge the death of Qassem Soleimani the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad under the orders of Trump back in January 2020.
Attorney General Merrick Garland released the following statement:
“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 J. Trump.”
The Justice Department stated that Shakeri previously illegally entered the United States but was deported in 2008 after serving prison time for robbery.
During his time behind bars, he met Rivera and Loadholt and assigned them to take out an Iranian American activist living in Brooklyn.
The IRGC also ordered Shakeri to assassinate other Americans and Israeli citizens located in the United States, including Trump.
The DOJ complaint additionally alleges Shakeri was tasked with spying on two Jewish-American citizens living in New York City and offered $500,000 by an IRGC official if he successfully killed either one.
Shakeri was also ordered to help organize a mass killing targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. US and Sri Lankan authorities responded by warning travelers to the area about a potential attack.
The Trump campaign was made aware of an Iranian assassination plot against Trump before the fateful July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania where Trump came within a centimeter of being assassinated by a Democrat donor named Thomas Matthew Crooks.
The Secret Service reportedly ramped up security after receiving intelligence regarding the scheme though Crooks supposedly had no connection to Iran’s plan to take out Trump.
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