DOJ charges Iranian man in alleged plot to assassinate Trump, others on U.S. soil

Nov. 8 (UPI) - Federal authorities on Friday revealed murder-for-hire charges against an Iranian man accused of acting on behalf of a terrorist organization in a plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump on U.S. soil.

Farhad Shakeri, 51, is also charged acting on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to oversee two American accomplices in a separate scheme to slay an unnamed American journalist of Iranian descent, identified as an "outspoken" critic of the Tehran regime.

Carlisle "Pop" Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, N.Y., were similarly charged with murder-for-hire in connection with the alleged plot against the female journalist, according to a federal criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York.

Shakeri, who remains at large in Iran, told law enforcement agents that the IRGC had tasked him with carrying out assassinations against American and Israeli citizens located in the United States, including Trump, prosecutors allege.

They said Shakeri told informants he was tasked on Oct. 7 with providing a plan to kill Trump while also stating he was told to surveil two Jewish American citizens living in New York City. He allegedly said he was offered $500,000 by an IRGC official for the murder of either victim.

"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 Garland said in a statemen t.

Calling Shakeri "an asset of the Iranian regime," Garland said he was tasked by the IRGC to "direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran's assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump."

Rivera and Loadholt 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," he added. "We will not stand for the Iranian regime's attempts to endanger the American people and America's national security."

The charges come four months after reports circulated that Trump's Secret Service protection had been boosted due to an Iranian plot to assassinate him. Those reports came shortly before he was grazed by a bullet during an unrelated assassination attempt by a 20-year-old man at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said this week's charges "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."

The IRGC is seeking to kill Trump in retaliation for the January 2020 death of its then-commander, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, U.S. officials say. The military and counterintelligence agency is under the authority of Iran's Supreme Leader and was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 2019.