Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The EPoch Times,
U.S. authorities have uncovered and thwarted an Iranian conspiracy to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, as per newly released documents.
The Justice Department has unveiled criminal charges on Nov. 8 against three individuals allegedly involved in a murder-for-hire network orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated terrorist organization by the United States.
“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,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in an associated statement.
“We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.”
The Justice Department confirmed the arrests of Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt in New York, while a third suspect, Farhad Shakeri, is still at large and believed to be in Iran.
Shakeri, who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, was deported around 2008 after serving a 14-year prison sentence for robbery.
According to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, an unnamed IRGC official instructed Shakeri in September to devise a plan to surveil and assassinate Trump.
Unable to formulate a plan at the time, Shakeri was told by the official to wait until after the presidential election, anticipating Trump’s defeat would make the assassination easier.
Subsequently, Shakeri began recruiting accomplices and offered a reward of $100,000 to locate and eliminate Trump and other individuals of U.S. and Israeli descent.
“We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime,” Garland said.
The revelation of this plot, just after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the election, underscores Iran’s persistent efforts to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, within the country. The Justice Department’s statement outlined Iran’s tactics of assault, kidnapping, and murder, both to suppress dissenters critical of the regime and seek revenge for the death of IRGC Commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike ordered by Trump 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 in an associated statement.
“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.”
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