The United States charged an Iranian man on Friday in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, the Department of Justice said.
Farhad Shakeri informed law enforcement “that he was tasked on October 7, 2024, with providing a plan to kill” Trump, the department said in a statement. It said Shakeri told law enforcement he did not intend to formulate such a plan within the time frame directed by the IRGC.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said in a statement carried by Iranian media on Saturday that the claim was a “repulsive” plot by Israel and Iranian opposition outside the country to “complicate matters between America and Iran.”
The DOJ described Shakeri, 51, as a Revolutionary Guard asset residing in Tehran. It said he immigrated to the U.S. as a child and was deported around 2008 following a robbery conviction. Shakeri is at large and believed to be in Iran, the prosecutors said.
