WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday unsealed criminal charges related to a foiled Iranian plot to assassinate newly elected President Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps last September instructed a contact to draw up a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.
If the man, identified as Farjad Shakeri, was unable to formulate a plan by then, the complaint said, the official told him that Iran would suspend its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill. him, according to the complaint.
Shakeri told the FBI he had no intention of proposing a plan to kill Trump within the seven days the official requested, the complaint said.
The plot, in which the indictment was unveiled just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to attack U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil.