Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance has described an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump, and a number of other Americans, as being "like an international spy thriller."
On Friday the Department of Justice filed charges against three men it claimed were involved in the scheme. They were named as Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan national believed to be in Tehran, and Americans Carlisle Rivera, a 49-year-old from Brooklyn, and Jonathon Loadholt, aged 36, from Staten Island.
Both Rivers and Loadholt were arrested on Thursday and made their first appearances before a New York court later that day.
Prosecutors allege Shakeri had been tasked by an official in Iran's Revolutionary Guard with "providing a plan" to kill Trump. They also connected him with plots to kill an Iranian-American "journalist, author and political activist" who had been critical of the Iranian regime and two Jewish-American businesspeople and Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.
The Department of Justice claimed Shakeri, who remains at large, had recruited Rivera and Loadholt to support his efforts.
Speaking to Newsweek, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said: "President-elect Trump is aware of the attempted assassination plot by the Iranian terrorist regime. Nothing will deter President Trump from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world."
Writing on her Substack blog, Vance, formerly the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, analyzed the 26-page complaint from prosecutors which she said, "reads like an international spy thriller."
She noted that according to the allegation, Shakeri had taken part in five "voluntary telephonic interviews" with U.S. investigators which were reportedly a bid to "get a reduced sentence for someone in U.S. custody."
Vance wrote: "This complaint appears to be part of a larger story. It is not an indictment—the government did not go to a grand jury, probably signaling a desire to move quickly and arrest defendants on U.S. soil before they learned they were under investigation.
"The information dropped about another defendant being brought to this country is cryptic. We may learn more when/if that happens or when the government goes to a grand jury to indict."
The former district attorney said Rivers and Loadholt would have "plenty of incentive to cooperate" with authorities, but added: "It's unlikely they'll know much, if any, detail about the Iranian terrorists behind the crimes, which involve what, at any time, would be a headline story about terrorist attacks planned on American soil and elsewhere."
Trump was elected for a second White House term on Tuesday defeating current Vice President Kamala Harris. According to The Associated Press he either won, or is on course to win, the seven key swing states.
Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice and the Iranian Foreign Ministry for comment on Saturday outside of regular office hours via online press inquiry form and email, respectively.
In January 2020, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force, was killed in an American drone in Iraq on Trump's orders. The Pentagon blamed Soleimani and his associates for "the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members," while Iran vowed to retaliate.
Concern over Trump's safety surged after a failed bid to assassinate the then Republican presidential candidate at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. This attack saw a bullet graze one of Trump's ears, while both a rally attendee and the gunmen were killed.
In September, police said they foiled another assassination bid after an armed man was arrested after fleeing from behind shrubbery at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida. The suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, has pleaded not guilty to a number of charges, including attempted assassination.
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