The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against a man identified as an “Iranian asset” and two others in the greater New York area who, prosecutors say, were “actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies” for assassination, including President-elect Donald Trump.
The indictment identifies four victims, including Trump, of the alleged conspirators: the president-elect, an unnamed Iranian dissident activist, and two unnamed Jewish-Americans. The defendant identified as an “Iranian asset,” Farhad Shakeri, allegedly maintained ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an arm of the Iranian military that Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.
Shakeri, believed to be still at large and believed to be in Iran, reportedly told American law enforcement agents that the IRGC asked him to organize a plan to assassinate Trump, but that he had missed the deadline to do so. The IRGC would then allegedly wait until after the 2024 presidential election to kill Trump, expecting him to lose the presidential race and, with it, significant security protection.
Instead, Trump won the election on Tuesday in a landslide, becoming the second president in American history elected to two non-consecutive terms in office.
The Iranian government, an Islamist terror regime, has claimed for years to be prosecuting Trump and several officials from his first administration in response to an airstrike that eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the then-head of the IRGC Quds Force, in 2020. The Quds Force is the foreign terrorism wing of the IRGC and Soleimani was responsible for hundreds of American deaths and death around the world. The IRGC reportedly published a video threatening Trump’s life shortly after the election.
According to the indictment, based on the testimony of an FBI agent, the three individuals involved in the conspiracy with Iran are Shakeri, still at large, and two New Yorkers: Carlisle “Pop” Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt. The men are believed to have met in prison; Shakeri served 14 years in an American prison for robbery and was deported in 2008.
“The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is actively targeting nationals of the United States and its allies living in countries around the world for attacks, including assault, kidnapping, and murder,” the indictment read. Much of the focus of the evidence is on the stalking and threatening of “Victim-1,” an Iranian dissident reports have identified as possibly being women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. The FBI presented communications between the suspects that indicated Shakeri was paying the others to stalk “Victim-1,” including at public events and her home, and was frustrated because she offered few opportunities to easily kill her without getting caught.
The issue of Trump’s potential assassination arose in interviews that Shakeri reportedly participated in with law enforcement agents. Shakeri claimed to be in contact and acting under the orders of an unnamed IRGC agent, who in September asked him “to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling,