Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump before election day foiled by FBI

In September, an unnamed Iranian official instructed a US contact to together a plan to track and ultimately kill Trump.

Revealed by a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the murder-for-hire plan was ultimately foiled by FBI agents.

The man, identified as Farhad Shakeri, reportedly used a network of criminal associates to conduct surveillance and assassination operations for the Iranian government.

An official Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had instructed Shakeri to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump” in the concluding weeks of the 2024 campaign.

In a phone conversation with an undercover FBI agent, Shakeri said he was instructed by the IRGC on October 7 to have a plan ready to go "within seven days".

If Shakeri failed to create a plan by this date, then the official said that the plot would be put on pause until after the Presidential Election, as the IRGC official believed that Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then.

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According to prosecutors, when Shakeri said that the plot would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the IRGC official replied that “we have already spent a lot of money .. . [s]o the money’s not an issue.”

Shakeri later told the FBI he did not propose a plan to murder Trump within this time frame, the complaint says.

He is believed to be in Iran and out of the reach of American justice.

Two other people, both Americans, were also charged with murder for hire and conspiracy.

Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt were both arrested in New York and have been accused of helping the Iranian government surveil a separate US citizen of Iranian origin.

The individual is an “outspoken critic of the Iranian regime” and they have been targeted for previous kidnapping and murder plots, the charges claim.

In statements, both Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray denounced the numerous attempts from Iran against the US.

“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Garland said.

“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.”

Wray said: "The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a designated foreign terrorist organisation — has been conspiring with criminals and hitmen to target and gun down Americans on U.S. soil and that simply won’t be tolerated.”