US Charges Iranian Man in Plot to Kill Donald Trump

*President-elect makes first cabinet appointment

Sunday Ehigiator with agency report

The United States has charged an Iranian man in connection with an alleged plot ordered by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, the Justice Department said yesterday.

In a statement, the department said Farhad Shakeri had informed law enforcement, “that he was tasked on October 7, 2024, with providing a plan to kill” Trump, the department said.
According to Reuters, Shakeri allegedly told law enforcement he had no plans to formulate a plan to kill Trump within the IRGC’s timeline.
The department described Shakeri, 51, as an IRGC asset residing in Tehran. It said he immigrated to the U.S. as a child and was deported in or about 2008 following a robbery conviction. Shakeri is at large and believed to be in Iran, the prosecutors said.

Two New York residents whom Shakeri had met in prison, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, have also been charged for helping Shakeri plot to kill a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York, described as an outspoken critic of Iran’s government who had previously been targeted for murder.
Prosecutors did not identify the target, but it matched the description of Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has criticised Iran’s head-covering laws for women. Four Iranians were charged in 2021 in connection with a plot to kidnap her, and in 2022 a man was arrested with a rifle outside her home.
Rivera and Loadholt have both been ordered detained pending trial. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Trump yesterday made his first cabinet appointment after his decisive election win, while signalling his intent to ditch the outgoing administration’s policies by talking to Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s campaign manager Susie Wiles would serve as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to be named to the high-profile role and the Republican’s first appointment to his incoming administration.
Trump’s crushing defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris is already shaking up US and world politics, just three days after Election Day and two-and-a-half months before he returns to the White House.

Putin, the Russian president, hailed Trump as “courageous” for the way he handled himself following an assassination attempt at a rally in July, and said he was “ready” to hold discussions with him. Billionaire Trump later told NBC News that he had not talked to Putin, the authoritarian leader whom he has repeatedly praised over the years, since his victory but “I think we’ll speak.”

The other frontrunners for a place in the Trump 2.0 administration reflect the disruptive shape it is likely to take. Robert F Kennedy Jr, a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement for whom Trump has pledged a “big role” in health care, told NBC News on Wednesday that “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines.”