The US justice department is bringing criminal charges over an Iranian plot to kill president-elect Donald Trump that was thwarted by the FBI.
The federal government has unsealed criminal charges in what the justice department said was a murder-for-hire plan to kill Mr Trump before this week’s presidential election, which he won decisively over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.
A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards instructed a contact in September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Mr Trump.
Investigators learned of the plot while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset who was deported from the US after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
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He told investigators that a Revolutionary Guard contact in Iran instructed him in September to devise a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately assassinate Mr Trump, according to the criminal complaint.
Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were arrested on Friday. Mr Shakeri remains in Iran.
“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in a statement on Friday.
In September, US intelligence officials told Mr Trump about a suspected Iranian plot to kill him, his campaign said at the time.
Meanwhile, a US judge on Friday set aside pending deadlines in Mr Trump’s 2020 election subversion case after federal prosecutors said they were grappling with the “unprecedented circumstance” of his impending return to the White House.
US district judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington approved a request from special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting the criminal case, to set aside the deadlines, according to a court order, while they consider its future.
Prosecutors said the delay was necessary “to afford the government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with department of justice policy”.
Under a justice department policy dating back to the 1970s, a sitting president cannot be subject to criminal prosecution.
A source told Reuters on Wednesday that the justice department was discussing how to wind down the election subversion case and another federal case it pursued against Mr Trump – in which he was accused of illegally holding on to classified documents after he left office.
Mr Trump pleaded not guilty last year to four criminal charges accusing him of conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. The effort by Mr Trump and his allies to reverse Mr Biden’s victory culminated in the deadly January 6th, 2021, attack on the US Capitol building.
Mr Trump’s lawyers had been due to respond by November 21st to Mr Smith’s argument that the case can proceed after a US supreme court ruling giving former presidents broad immunity from prosecution over official actions taken while in office.
Mr Smith said prosecutors would inform the judge by December 2nd how they propose to move forward.
Robert Lighthizer, a firm supporter of tariffs, has been asked to return as US trade representative in Mr Trump’s administration, the Financial Times has reported.
Mr Lighthizer was one of the leading figures in Mr Trump’s trade war with China and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada during his first term.
On Thursday, Mr Trump announced he had picked Susie Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, to be White House chief of staff. – Agencies