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The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday that it had thwarted an assassination plot that included newly re-elected President Donald Trump as a target.
The suspects are allegedly part of a murder-for-hire network based out of Iran. Two of the men taken into custody, Carlisle “Pop” Rivera, and Jonathon Loadholt, are from Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York, respectively. The third, Farhad Shakeri of Iran, remains at large.
“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.
“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.
“We have also charged and arrested two individuals who we allege were recruited as part of that network to silence and kill, on U.S. soil, an American journalist who has been a prominent critic of the regime. We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.”
Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt have all been charged with murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, each which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Shakeri has also been charged with several other terroristic-related threats, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Government of Iran.
This is now the third failed assassination attempt against President-elect Donald Trump over the past four months.
Earlier this week, the Department of Justice also arrested Skyler Philippi, 24, of Columbia, Tennessee, and charged him with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility.
Philippi “allegedly planned to attack the power grid with a drone and explosives, leaving thousands of Americans and critical infrastructure like hospitals without power,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The attack on the Nashville, Tennessee energy facility was intended “to further his violent white supremacist ideology,” according to Attorney General Garland.
He was thwarted, in part, by the work of undercover employees of the FBI and a confidential source to whom he had confided his plans, which also at one point allegedly included the desire to commit a mass shooting at a YMCA facility.