DOJ brings charges in Iranian murder-for-hire plan targeting Trump
The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before this week's election with planning the assassination of the Republican president-elect.
Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a web of criminal associates who participate in Tehran's assassination plots.
Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
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