An Iranian and two Americans charged with conspiracy to assassinate Trump

The US Justice Department has indicted an Iranian man in connection with a plot to assassinate Donald Trump during the campaign.

According to the indictment, the Iranian government instructed one of its agents to stalk and assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.

The defendants are Farhad Shaqeri and two New Yorkers, Carlyle Rivera and Jonathan Laudholt, on charges of murder for hire and conspiracy.

An unnamed official of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards instructed Shaqeri to “focus on the surveillance and, ultimately, the assassination” of Trump in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, the indictment says.

Prosecutors say that when Shaqeri said the plan “would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money,” the Revolutionary Guards official said “we’ve already spent a lot of money … so money is not an issue.”

In fact, in a phone conversation with an undercover FBI agent, Shaqeri said he was instructed by the Guards on October 7 to have a plan to assassinate Trump “within seven days.”

If the agent did not meet the deadline, the contact with the Guards reportedly said, the hit on Trump would be postponed until after the election, which Tehran estimated he would lose so the assassination would then be easier.

Rivera and Laudholt were ordered to be held until their trial next Thursday. Shaqeri is believed to be in Iran.

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