The News
The US Justice Department on Friday filed criminal charges over an alleged Iran-backed murder-for-hire plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
An Afghan national identified as an Iranian government asset told investigators that a contact within Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in September instructed him to to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, the Associated Press reported. The plot was ultimately thwarted by the FBI.
The Afghan national, who has been charged in connection with the plot, was deported from the US and now remains in Iran, according to the Associated Press. Two other men involved in the plot — including a prominent Iranian-American journalist — were also arrested and charged Friday, authorities said in an unsealed complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement.
US officials in September informed Trump about Iranian threats against him, his campaign said at the time. Authorities later clarified that the plot was unrelated to the two failed domestic assassination attempts against Trump.
The president was briefed on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States,” the Trump campaign said in September.
The 2024 election was marked by extensive foreign interference. Officials earlier this summer alleged that Russia paid US right-wing networks to push disinformation, and Chinese hackers reportedly targeted Trump and his running mate JD Vance’s phone data.