Three people have been charged as part of an alleged Iranian murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.
Court documents show that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard asked one of the men charged, Farhad Shakeri, to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.
The accused Iranian government asset and two Americans living in New York were charged, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Friday.
Farhad Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt have been charged with murder-for-hire, according to reports citing the US Department of Justice.
Rivera and Loadholt have been arrested while Shakeri is believed to be in Tehran.
The FBI has described Shakeri as an "asset" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He has spent time in American prisons for robbery and authorities say he maintains a web of criminal associates who participate in Tehran's assassination plots.
Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Shakeri.
The official who was quoting by Shakeri alleged said that "We have already spent a lot of money" and that "money's not an issue."
Shakeri told investigators the official told him that if he could not put together a plan within the seven-day timeframe, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then, the complaint said.
The two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were also arrested on Friday.
"There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump's defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials, including Trump, on US soil.
Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot targeting American officials.
Iranian operatives also conducted a hack-and-leak operation of emails belonging to Trump campaign associates in what officials have assessed was an effort to interfere in the presidential election.
Intelligence officials have said Iran opposed Trump's reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran.
Trump's administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran's leaders to vow revenge.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and nothing will deter him "from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world."
More to follow.
