2 New Yorkers busted in plot to stalk, assassinate Trump ordered by Iran, bombshell indictment reveals
2 New Yorkers busted in plot to stalk, assassinate Trump ordered by Iran, bombshell indictment reveals
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Published Nov. 8, 2024, 12:24 p.m. ET477 Comments
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The Iranian government instructed one of its agents to stalk and assassinate former President Donald Trump this past September, according to a bombshell indictment unsealed by Manhattan federal prosecutors Friday.
The indictment, which charges Iranian Farhad Shakeri and two New Yorkers with murder for hire and conspiracy, states that an unnamed official in Iran’s notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) instructed Shakeri in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign to “focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”
Prosecutors say that when Shakeri noted that the plot would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the IRGC official said that “we have already spent a lot of money … [s]o the money’s not an issue.”
In a phone conversation with an FBI agent, Shakeri said he was instructed by the IRGC on Oct. 7 of this year to have a plan in place to kill Trump “within seven days.”
If Shakeri did not meet his deadline, the IRGC contact allegedly said, the hit on Trump would be postponed until after the election, which Tehran assessed that the Republican nominee would lose “and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate [him].”
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Shakeri told the FBI he didn’t plan to propose a scheme to murder Trump within the seven days the official had requested, according to the complaint.
The charges were unsealed three days after Trump, 78, defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the 47th president-elect. It is the latest example of what officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target Trump and other current and former government officials on US soil.
