The Justice Department charges Donald Trump in connection with an Iranian murder-for-hire scheme.

 

A man who claimed to have been tasked by a government official prior to last week's election with organizing the assassination of the Republican president-elect was charged by the Justice Department on Friday with revealing an Iranian murder-for-hire scheme to kill Donald Trump.

Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who served time in American prisons for theft and who officials claim maintains a network of criminal accomplices enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire conspiracies, informed investigators about the conspiracy to kill Trump.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, Shakeri told the FBI that he was directed this past September by a source in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to put aside other work he was doing and come up with a plan within seven days to spy on and murder Trump.

Shakeri cited the official as stating that "money is not an issue" and that "we have already spent a lot of money." According to the complaint, Shakeri told investigators that the official informed him that if he couldn't come up with a plan in the allotted seven days, the plot would be put on hold until after the election since the person believed Trump would lose and it would be simpler to murder him then.

Shakeri is still in Iran and is at large. Two other individuals were detained on suspicion of being hired by Shakeri to track down and murder well-known Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad, who has been the target of several Iranian murder-for-hire schemes that have been thwarted by law authorities.

Speaking over the phone to The Associated Press from Berlin, where she was about to attend a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the wall's destruction, Alinejad said, "I'm very shocked." "It is shocking that this is the third attempt against me."

"I came to America to exercise my First Amendment right to freedom of speech — I don't want to die," she wrote in a post on the social networking site X. I deserve to be protected, and I want to fight against oppression. I appreciate police enforcement for keeping me safe, but I implore the US government to safeguard American national security.

Messages requesting comment were not immediately answered by the attorneys for the other two defendants, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt. The U.N. mission to Iran chose not to comment.

Investigators also learned that Shakeri, an Afghan national who came to the United States as a child and was deported after serving 14 years in prison for robbery, was charged by his Revolutionary Guard contact with planning the murders of two Jewish-Americans in New York and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. While incarcerated, he overlapped with Rivera and an unnamed co-conspirator, according to officials.

In a series of taped phone interviews with FBI agents while in Iran, Shakeri allegedly revealed some of the details of the suspected schemes, according to the criminal complaint. He informed investigators that he was cooperating in order to try to achieve a shorter prison sentence for an associate who was incarcerated in the United States.

The accusation states that although authorities found some of the material he supplied to be untrue, they found that his claims about a plan to assassinate Trump and Iran's readiness to pay substantial sums of money were true.

Days after Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris, the Justice Department revealed the plot, which is part of what federal officials have called Iran's continuous attempts to harm Trump and other U.S. government officials on American soil. For example, the Justice Department prosecuted a Pakistani citizen with Iranian connections in a murder-for-hire scheme against U.S. officials last summer.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday that Iran is one of the few actors in the world that seriously threatens American national security. The case demonstrates Iran's "continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens," including Trump, "other government leaders, and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran," according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

In an attempt to sabotage Trump's campaign and tamper with the presidential election, Iranian agents reportedly hacked and leaked emails belonging to Trump campaign associates, according to officials.

Iran, according to intelligence officials, opposed Trump's reelection because they believed he would heighten tensions between Washington and Tehran. Iran's officials vowed to exact revenge after Trump's government canceled a nuclear agreement with Iran, reinstated sanctions, and ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The president-elect was aware of the assassination plot, according to Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung, and nothing will stop him "from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world."

New York was where Neumeister reported. This report was written by Zeke Miller and Edith M. Lederer of the Associated Press. 

Source: https://apnews.com/article/iran-fbi-justice-department-iran-83cff84a7d65901a058ad6f41a564bdb

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