Federal officials have foiled a second alleged Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.
Three individuals have been charged for involvement in the effort.
Two suspects, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, both of New York, have been arrested. A third individual, Farhad Shakeri of Iran, remains at-large.
“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 statement. “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.”
“Shakeri is an [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] asset residing in Tehran, Iran,” the DOJ said. “Shakeri 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.”
At Shakeri’s instruction, Loadholt and Rivera “spent months surveilling a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin residing in the United States (Victim-1). Victim-1 is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and has been the target of multiple prior plots for kidnapping and/or murder directed by the Government of Iran,” the DOJ explained. “In exchange for Shakeri’s promise of $100,000, Rivera and Loadholt repeatedly sought to locate Victim-1 for murder.”
Two Jewish American citizens in New York City were also targeted.
Instead of killing the dissident and Jewish Americans, the IRGC told Shakeri to form a plan to assassinate Trump. The plan was paused after Trump won the election.
Initially, Iran believed Trump “would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate” him,” the indictment says.
