Foreign minister disputes U.S. accusations of Iranian plot to kill Trump

Iran’s foreign minister is denying the U.S. Justice Department’s accusation that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind an effort to kill President-elect Donald Trump.

The Justice Department announced criminal charges on Friday against Farhad Shakeri, who U.S. officials said is a Tehran-based IRGC asset tasked with surveilling and planning to assassinate Mr. Trump.

Iran Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on X that the assassination plot detailed by U.S. officials was a fabricated scenario.

“As a killer does not exist in reality, scriptwriters are brought in to manufacture a third-rate comedy,” Mr. Araghchi said on Saturday. “Who can in their right mind believe that a supposed assassin SITS IN IRAN and talks online to the FBI?!”

The criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said the FBI gathered information on the plot to kill Mr. Trump in a series of phone calls with Mr. Shakeri.

Mr. Shakeri, deported from the U.S. more than 15 years ago after serving approximately 14 years in prison, spoke with the FBI five times, according to the complaint. The most recent phone call was on Thursday.

“Shakeri’s stated reason for participating in the interviews was to attempt to obtain a sentence reduction for another individual (’Individual-1’), who is serving a sentence in U.S. prison, by providing assistance to law enforcement on this individual’s behalf,” the complaint said.

Mr. Shakeri told U.S. officials that the Iranian government asked him in September to target Mr. Trump, identified as Victim-4 in the complaint. Tehran has long vowed vengeance for the U.S. airstrike Mr. Trump ordered in January 2020 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

“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,” the complaint said. “If Shakeri was unable to put forth a plan within that time frame, IRGC Official-1 continued, the IRGC would pause its plan to kill Victim-4 until after the U.S. presidential [election], because IRGC Official-1 assessed that Victim-4 would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate Victim-4.”

Mr. Shakeri told the FBI he did not intend to propose to murder Mr. Trump in the IRGC’s preferred time frame. U.S. officials issued murder-for-hire and money laundering charges against Mr. Shakeri and against two of his associates who were allegedly recruited to target a journalist.

The complaint also said Mr. Shakeri built a network of criminal associates while in U.S. prisons to supply the IRGC with assassins and surveillance operatives.

Mr. Araghchi, considered a relative moderate in Tehran theocratic regime, said the Iranian government respects the American people’s decision at the ballot box and does not plan to interfere.

“The American people have made their decision. And Iran respects their right to elect the president of their choice,” Mr. Araghchi said on X. “The path forward is also a choice. It begins with respect. Iran is NOT after nuclear weapons, period. This is a policy based on Islamic teachings and our security calculations.”

But many doubt the Iranian regime’s sincerity and note the government is made up of a collection of often contending factions under the overall direction of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The elected government of President Masoud Pezeshkian is just one of a number of competing power centers in Tehran.

For example, in 2022, the supreme leader reportedly hosted an animated video on his website dramatizing the assassination of Mr. Trump. The cartoon, titled “Revenge is Definite,” depicted a robot maneuvering onto the grounds of Mr. Trump’s Florida home and then onto a golf course where Mr. Trump is preparing to swing a club. The robot then calls in a drone strike.

Earlier this year, the U.S. intelligence community accused the Iranian government of a hacking operation aimed at Mr. Trump’s campaign team. The Iranian government denied any wrongdoing and similarly said then that it had no intention to interfere in the election.

U.S. officials have also warned of Iranian efforts to stoke violence in the post-election period, as the U.S. government transitions from the Biden administration to the coming Trump administration.

A declassified National Intelligence Council memo from October identified Iranian cyber actors as capable of conducting operations that could lead to physical violence.

On the evening before Election Day last week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned that Iran was targeting Mr. Trump.

“We previously reported that Iran also remains determined to seek revenge against select former U.S. officials whom it views as culpable for the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Soleimani in January 2020,” the agencies said. “It has repeatedly highlighted former President Donald Trump among its priority targets for retribution.”