Iranian operatives sought to assassinate now President-elect Donald Trump just weeks before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election and were willing to forego other plots against regime critics and high-profile targets to see it through, court documents say.
The revelations, in documents unsealed Friday against the suspects in an unrelated murder-for-hire plot, stem from a series of conversations between the alleged ringleader, 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri, and the FBI.
The documents indicate that Shakeri, who said he was in Tehran at the time of the conversations, agreed to speak with the FBI to gain a reduced prison sentence for an unnamed prisoner in the U.S.
Shakeri told the agents that an official with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps approached him in mid- to late September, asking him to set aside a plot to kill an Iranian dissident and journalist in New York, to instead go after Trump.
Shakeri said he was asked to provide a plan within seven days and that when he said targeting Trump would be costly, the IRGC official told him, "We have already spent a lot of money … money's not an issue."
He also told the FBI that if a plan could not be formulated within the seven-day timeframe, the IRGC official planned to wait until after the U.S. election, reasoning Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him.
The court documents do not say whether Shakeri’s conversations with the FBI were authorized by the IRGC or other authorities in Iran. The Iranian mission at the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
The plot against Trump is just the latest in what U.S. officials have described as brazen attempts by Tehran to kill the former and future U.S. president in retaliation for a 2020 drone strike in Baghdad that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the IRGC's Quds Force.
In August, U.S. officials charged a Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, who had traveled to the United States months earlier on behalf of Iran looking for hitmen to kill Trump and others.
"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran," said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement Friday.
"We will not stand for the Iranian regime's attempts to endanger the American people and America's national security," he added.
Trump’s communications director said that the president-elect was aware of the plot by "the Iranian terrorist regime."
"Nothing will deter President Trump from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world," Steven Cheung said in an email to VOA.
U.S. officials have been especially concerned about Iran's repeated use of criminal gangs and others to carry out its dirty work ((plotting)) on American soil.
Court documents allege Shakeri, an Afghan national who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, fits the description.
The documents say Shakeri was deported from the U.S. in 2008, after spending 14 years in prison for robbery. But they add that during his time behind bars, Shakeri cultivated a network of criminal associates that he then would use in efforts to carry out Iran's orders.
According to prosecutors, one of those associates was working with Shakeri up until the U.S. election to kill VOA Persian Service journalist Masih Alinejad, described in the court documents as "an Iranian American journalist, author, and political activist, and an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime's human rights abuses and corruption."
The associate, 49-year-old Carlisle Rivera, then turned to one of his acquaintances, 36-year-old Jonathan Loadholt, to carry out the attack for a sum of $100,000.
Rivera and Loadholt were arrested Thursday.
Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt are charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering conspiracy. The charges carry maximum prison sentences of 10 to 20 years.
Shakeri is also charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Alinejad on Friday expressed astonishment that she was wrapped up in the plot to kill the president-elect.
"I am shocked," she wrote on the X social media platform. "[T]he person assigned to assassinate @realDonaldTrump was also assigned to kill me on U.S. soil."
"I came to America to practice my First Amendment right to freedom of speech — I don't want to die," she said. "Thank you to law enforcement for protecting me."
Last month, U.S. prosecutors charged a senior IRGC official in connection with a failed assassination attempt against Alinejad in 2022.
