According to a recent report by Punch, the U.S. Justice Department shared details of an alleged plot led by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate former President Donald Trump. The plan was reportedly in retaliation for the U.S. strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, during Trump’s presidency.
Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national based in Tehran, was described by the Justice Department as an “IRGC asset.” According to prosecutors, Shakeri had connections with individuals he met in U.S. prisons, whom he allegedly recruited for the IRGC to carry out surveillance and assassinations.
Shakeri reportedly discussed the assassination plot with FBI agents on the phone, hoping to negotiate a sentence reduction for someone imprisoned in the U.S. Shakeri told the FBI that an IRGC official had approached him in September, seeking his help to organize an attack on Trump. Shakeri indicated that he warned the official that the operation would be costly, to which the IRGC representative allegedly replied that “money’s not an issue.” Shakeri said IRGC asked him on October 7 to devise a plan to kill Trump within seven days. He mentioned that the IRGC official allegedly said that if he (Shakeri) was unable to come up with a plan in that timeframe, the IRGC would seek to kill Trump after the election.
According to Punch: “Shakeri told the FBI he was approached by an IRGC official in September about organizing the assassination of Trump. He allegedly told the IRGC official it would cost a “huge” amount of money, to which the official responded: “Money’s not an issue.”