US charges Iranian citizen over alleged pre-election plot to kill Trump

The US Department of Justice on Friday (local time) charged an Iranian citizen who was tapped by Iran to allegedly assassinate Donald Trump before the presidential election.

Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran was charged as 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, according to United States Department of Justice statement.

"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," said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

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.

"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. We will not stand for the Iranian regime's attempts to endanger the American people and America's national security," read the statement.

Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera, also known as Pop, 49, of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York, were charged in a criminal complaint in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York.

Rivera was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, and Loadholt was arrested in Staten Island, New York. Shakeri remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran. Rivera and Loadholt made their initial appearance in the Southern District of New York yesterday and were ordered detained pending trial.

"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran," Attorney General Merrick B Garland said.

"Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on US soil and abroad. This has to stop," US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said.

As per the statement, Iran targets US and its allies in a bid to avenge the death of then-Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.

Shakeri is an IRGC asset who immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or about 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for a robbery conviction. In recent months, Shakeri has used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States to supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets, the statement said.

Notably, ahead of the 2024 US presidential elections, a reported gunfire incident disrupted former President Donald Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, CBS News reported. Following the incident, Trump was immediately escorted off stage by US Secret Service agents.