The U.S. Department of Justice United States on Friday accused a man linked to the Revolutionary Guard of Iran from hatching a plan to murder the then Republican candidate Donald Trump before the election.
In a statement, the attorney general Merrick Garland explained that the Iranian regime tasked the defendant with “running a network of criminal associates to to promote assassination plots Iran against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.”
The main defendant is Farhad Shakeri51-year-old Farhad Shakeri, described in the lawsuit as an Afghan living in Tehran who spent a decade in prison in New Yorkwhere he met his associates, before being deported – he is now presumed to be in Iran – and that he is an “active” member of the Revolutionary Guard.
The Justice Department asserts that Shakeri voluntarily participated in a telephone conversation with the FBIin which he stated that on October 7 last year he was charged with to prepare a plan to kill Donald Trump the following week, but never thought of preparing such a plan “in the time frame proposed by the Revolutionary Guard,” without making that contradiction very clear.
If Shakeri did not have such a plan ready by then, as he claimed was his case, the Iranian militia would put its mission on hold until after the elections because they believed Trump would lose them and that “then it would be easier” to assassinate him, he adds.
The accusation comes after Trump’s campaign said in September that U.S. intelligence officials had warned the then-candidate “about real and specific threats by Iran with the aim of assassinating him.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the release that the lawsuit “exposes Iran’s blatant attempts to against U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents critical of the Iranian regime.”