While one of the plotters behind an Iranian intelligence-linked assassination attempt against Donald Trump has been convicted in U.S. federal court, another man charged in a separate plot to assassinate the then-candidate in 2024 is believed to still be hiding out in Iran.

Federal prosecutors have alleged that two Iranian-linked plots to assassinate then-candidate Donald Trump — both allegedly linked to Iranian intelligence services — were launched amidst the presidential contest between Trump and Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris) as Iran sought to meddle in the election to stop Trump’s return to the White House. One of the trials kicked off just days before U.S. and Israeli strikes commenced against the Iranian regime just over a week ago.

The Justice Department filed charges against Afghan national Farhad Shakeri and Pakistani national Asif Merchant for their alleged roles in Iranian-backed assassination plots aimed at Trump.

Shakeri remains at large in Iran

Shakeri was convicted for manslaughter in 1991, and by 2024, according to the Department of Justice, was living in Iran and was an asset of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Merchant was found guilty by a Brooklyn jury late last week. Both men were accused of conducting their plots at the behest of the IRGC. A top Iranian regime security official has also repeatedly threatened Trump's life in recent days.

Shakeri was charged in the Southern District of New York with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, money laundering conspiracy, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Government of Iran.

The Justice Department announced in November 2024 — just after the presidential election — that “Shakeri was tasked by the Iranian regime with surveilling and plotting to assassinate President-elect Donald J. Trump.”

The DOJ linked the IRGC plot against Trump to the U.S. strike which killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani — the influential terrorist leader of the IRGC’s Quds Force — in early January 2020.

“The IRGC has publicly stated its desire to avenge the death of Soleimani, and, among its activities, the IRGC plots and conducts attack operations outside Iran targeting U.S. citizens residing in the United States and abroad,” the DOJ said.

“Notable Attack Plotting” by the IRGC

The ODNI lists Shakeri’s criminal endeavors as an example of “Notable Attack Plotting” by the IRGC and says that “a U.S. indictment reveals that the IRGC plans to use a criminal network to conduct murder-for-hire operations against an Iranian-American dissident, Jewish citizens, and then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump.”

Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera of Brooklyn, and Jonathon Loadholt of Staten Island were also charged in early November 2024 “in connection with their alleged involvement in a plot to murder a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York.” The target was easily identifiable as Iranian-American womens' rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad.

Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt were all charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and money laundering conspiracy. Rivera pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January. Loadholt pleaded guilty in January and is slated to be sentenced in April.

Shakeri also told the FBI that he had been instructed by Iran to plot a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka. He also said he had been tasked with surveilling two Jewish Americans in New York.

Shakeri had immigrated to the U.S. as a child, the DOJ said, and he was deported in 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for an armed robbery conviction. The DOJ said Shakeri was later arrested in 2019 by the Sri Lanka Police Narcotics Bureau following the seizure of 92 kilograms of heroin. 

Shakeri’s IRGC-linked criminal network takes aim at Trump

The DOJ said that “Shakeri has used a network of criminal associates he met in prison in the United States to supply the IRGC with operatives to conduct surveillance and assassinations of IRGC targets” which the DOJ dubbed the "Shakeri Network.”

Prosecutors said that “Shakeri has informed law enforcement that he was tasked on Oct. 7, 2024” — the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks — “with providing a plan to kill” Trump.

The 2024 DOJ complaint against Shakeri was penned by FBI special agent Matthew Chrusz, who laid out the IRGC’s desire to assassinate the prior and future president in 2024.

“According to Shakeri, in approximately mid-to-late September 2024, IRGC Official-1 asked Shakeri to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump (‘Victim-4’ herein),” the DOJ complaint against the IRGC operative stated. The DOJ complaint continued to say that “according to Shakeri, during his meeting with IRGC Official-1 on or about October 7, 2024, IRGC Official-1 directed Shakeri to provide a plan within seven days to kill Victim-4. If Shakeri was unable to put forth a plan within that timeframe, IRGC Official-1 continued, the IRGC would pause its plan to kill Victim-4 until after the U.S. Presidential elections, because IRGC Official-1 assessed that Victim-4 would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate Victim-4.”

Shakeri said IRGC Official-1 told him that “if Shakeri was unable to put forth a plan within that timeframe, the IRGC would pause its plan to kill” Trump “until after the U.S. Presidential elections, because IRGC Official-1 assessed that” Trump “would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate” him.

Court filings showed that, on at least five occasions between September and November 2024, Shakeri participated in "voluntary telephonic interviews with FBI agents" in exchange for a sentence reduction for another individual imprisoned in the U.S.

Biden-era law enforcement officials call out IRGC plot against Trump

“There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “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 J. Trump.”

Garland added that “we will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security.” FBI Director Christopher Wray said at the time that “the charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target U.S. citizens, including President-elect Donald J. Trump, other government leaders, and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran.”

Senior FBI official David Sundberg said that the charges "further demonstrate the IRGC's continued campaign to silence and kill Americans who criticize the Iranian regime” as he vowed “to continue to work with our partners to stop IRGC operatives and associates who seek to harm our citizens on our soil.”

“Actors directed by the Government of Iran continue to target our citizens, including President-elect Trump, on U.S. soil and abroad,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York said at the time. “This has to stop.”

Then-House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., also weighed in just after the charges were made public.

“Iran continues to undermine our sovereignty through acts of transnational repression, terror plots, and assassination attempts on U.S. soil against former and current U.S. government officials, such as President-elect Donald Trump, members of the national security community, American citizens, and dissidents like Masih Alinejad,” Green said. “The fact that the IRGC sponsored a plot to kill a former and now incoming president demonstrates Tehran’s dedication to undermining our democratic process and disrupting any effort to deter its malign influence on the world stage.”

“Shakeri repeatedly denied having asked anyone else to perform surveillance of Victim-1 and stated that he did not have anyone else in the New York City area who could provide that type of surveillance. Shakeri also claimed that he had deleted information about Victim-1's address from his phone,” the agent wrote. “These claims were false and Shakeri in fact had paid Carlisle Rivera, a/k/a ‘Pop,’ and Jonathan Loadholt, the defendants, to surveil and attempt to surveil Victim-I and had promised them a larger payment for Victim-1's murder.”

"Trump got the last laugh": Hegseth

The IRGC leader who was allegedly behind the assassination plots aimed at now-President Trump in 2024 was killed amidst U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced last week. “The leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed. Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh,” Hegseth said.

Israeli media outlets reported last Wednesday that Rahman Mokadam, described as the head of the IRGC’s special operations division, was the Iranian official who had been killed. The exact name of the IRGC official has not been formally confirmed by the U.S. military.

Trump said two Sunday nights ago that "I got him before he got me” in reference to the ayatollah, according to ABC News. “They tried twice. Well, I got him first." Israeli journalist Amit Segal first tweeted last Wednesday morning that “Israel has eliminated Rahman Mokadam, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps special operations division, and the man behind the assassination attempt on Trump on the eve of the 2024 presidential election. Trump was informed of this in the past few hours by Israel.”

Hegseth said during his press conference last Wednesday that killing Mokadam had not been a top priority and had not been raised by Trump at all. “We’ve known for a long time that Iran had intentions on trying to kill President Trump and/or other U.S. officials,” Hegseth said. 

“And while that was not the focus of the effort by any stretch of the imagination — in fact never was raised by the president or anybody else — I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list.”

The war secretary added: “It wasn’t the beginning of the effort — we were focused on missiles and launchers, and that’s the focus — but ultimately, if we had the opportunity to get at those who were trying to get at Americans specifically, we would. And so, we eventually had the opportunity to do that from the air.”

Iran has repeatedly threatened revenge killing of Trump, others

Roughly two years after IRGC General Qassem Soleimani was killed in a drone strike by the U.S. military on Trump’s orders in early 2020, Khamenei’s official website released a bizarre but threatening animation in January 2022 depicting IRGC forces killing Trump using drones and a robot as the president golfed at his course near Mar-a-Lago.

Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the IRGC aerospace chief who was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike last summer, told Iranian state television in February 2023 that "God willing, we are looking to kill Trump" to avenge Soleimani, saying that Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former CENTCOM Commander General Frank McKenzie, and the “military commanders who issued the order should be killed.”

Iran International, a Persian-language satellite television station based in London which is often critical of the Iranian regime, also detailed multiple other instances of Iranian officials publicly threatening Trump’s life.

Iranian foreign minister Ali Bagheri-Kani reportedly reiterated his threat when he said that “Trump and others who were with him are all known to us. From Pompeo, who no one humiliated as much as Martyr Soleimani, to the U.S. president and all those involved in this crime, [they] are all under the microscope (not only of Muslims but) of all free people of the world.”

Iranian President in 2022: "Muslims will take our martyr's revenge"

Khamenei proclaimed “harsh revenge” against the U.S. and reportedly issued a threatening tweet where he published an image of Trump on a golf course under the shadow of a drone. The Iranian leader later deleted the post. Then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi also reportedly claimed around the second anniversary of Soleimani’s death that “if Trump and Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr's revenge.”

More details on the Merchant plot emerged after his arrest in 2024, even as Iran denied being behind it. The Iranian-backed plot spurred multiple stories about the increased threat levels against Trump.

A spokesperson for the Iranian regime said in mid-July 2024 that “these accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious. From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

Trump said on Truth Social in late July 2024 that “if they do ‘assassinate President Trump,’ which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth — If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered ‘gutless’ cowards!”

Iran has repeatedly denied being behind the plots by Merchant and Shakeri. Their denials took on greater importance after Trump’s win in November 2024 meant he would become president again.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in early November 2024 that Iranian involvement was “completely baseless” and claimed that “repeating such claims at this juncture is a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating the issues between the U.S. and Iran.”

While Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi claimed at the time that “as a killer does not exist in reality, scriptwriters are brought in to manufacture a third-rate comedy,” Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran said "We will relentlessly avenge the blood of our Leader and our people. Trump must pay and will pay." 

Trump told CBS News later that day that "I have no idea what he's talking about, who he is. I couldn't care less," adding that Larijani has "already been defeated." Larijani responded on X on Tuesday with a seeming death threat directed at Trump and the U.S., citing Ashura, occurring on the 10th of Muharram (falling around June 25, 2026), a significant Islamic day of fasting, reflection, and, for many, intense mourning in the Shiite faith.

“The Ashura-loving Iranian people do not fear your hollow threats; for those greater than you have failed to erase it […] So beware lest you be the ones to vanish,” the Iranian regime official said.