Justice Department brings charges in thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate Trump

Justice Department brings charges in thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate Trump


An Iranian man picks up a newspaper with an image of the U.S. President-elect, Donald Trump, published on its front page in downtown Tehran, Iran, on November 7, 2024. 

Morteza Nikoubazl | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The Department of Justice on Friday charged an Iranian man and two others in a plot to kill then-candidate Donald Trump.

Iran’s government directed these actors to “target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release.

The three who were charged are Farhad Shakeri of Iran; Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathan Loadholt, of Staten Island, New York.

According to the criminal complaint, an official with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps allegdly told Shakeri in mid-to-late September to focus on surveilling and assassinating Trump. 

Shakeri told the Iranian official that it would “cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the complaint alleges, adding that he understood that Iran was “willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt” to have Trump killed.

Around Oct. 7, the Iranian official tasked Shakeri with providing a plan within seven days to kill Trump, he told law enforcement in recorded interviews, the complaint says.

The Iranian official warned Shakeri that if he was unable to offer an assassination plot by the deadline, then the IRGC would “pause its plan to kill [Trump] until after the U.S. presidential elections” because the official assessed that Trump would “lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate [Trump],” the complaint alleges. Shakeri told FBI officials that he didn’t intend to propose a plan to assassinate Trump in the timeframe set by the IRGC, it says. 

Prosecutors allege Shakeri is “an IRGC asset” living in Tehran and is an Afghan national who immigrated to the U.S. as a child. Around 2008, he was deported from the U.S. after serving about 14 years in New York State prisons following a robbery conviction in 1994. 

On Thursday, Rivera was arrested in Brooklyn and Loadholt in Staten Island.

Prosecutors also allege that they were recruited as part of a criminal network to silence and kill an American journalist known to be a strong critic of the Iranian regime and its human rights abuses.



Source

Hamas seeks amendments to the U.S. ceasefire proposal for Gaza
World

Hamas seeks amendments to the U.S. ceasefire proposal for Gaza

A general view of destruction in North Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border, on May 17, 2025. Amir Cohen | Reuters Hamas is seeking amendments to the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal for Gaza, a senior official with the group told The Associated Press on Saturday, as hungry Palestinians in Gaza […]

Read More
Couple bought a homestead for 0,000, spent ,000 on DIY renovations: Their No. 1 takeaway after a year on the land
World

Couple bought a homestead for $390,000, spent $13,000 on DIY renovations: Their No. 1 takeaway after a year on the land

In 2023, Sophie Hilaire Goldie, 37, and Rocky Goldie, 50, had just finished converting a friend’s Home Depot shed into a tiny home and were ready to start looking for their own place together. “If it wasn’t for meeting her, I probably would have ended up in a little shack,” Rocky tells CNBC Make It. […]

Read More
Harvard-trained educator: Kids who learn how to use AI will become smarter adults—if they avoid this No. 1 mistake
World

Harvard-trained educator: Kids who learn how to use AI will become smarter adults—if they avoid this No. 1 mistake

Students that copy and paste ChatGPT answers into their assignments, with little thinking involved, are doing themselves a disservice — especially because artificial intelligence really can help students become better learners, according to psychologist and author Angela Duckworth. Instead of distrusting AI, show kids how to properly use it, Duckworth advised in a speech at […]

Read More