FBI busts Iranian murder-for-hire plan targeting Donald Trump
The Iranian asset behind the plot was also tasked with carrying out assassinations targeting an Iranian dissident living in Brooklyn and two U.S.-Israelis
U.S. authorities busted an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging the suspected hitman.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt were charged with murder-for-hire; the first two have been arrested, while Shakeri, who the FBI described as an "asset" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is understood to be in Tehran and was charged in absentia.
In September, Shakeri's Iranian handlers tasked him with putting together a plan to surveil and ultimately assassinate Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
Iran also tasked Shakeri with carrying out assassinations targeting an Iranian dissident living in Brooklyn and two U.S.-Israelis.
“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 B. Garland said in a statement.