Justice Department charges Iranian man over alleged plot to kill Donald Trump

The US Justice Department has charged an Iranian man in connection with an alleged murder-for-hire plot to kill Donald Trump before he was elected president.

Investigators learned of the plan to kill Trump from Farhad Shakeri, said to be an Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and assassination plots.

Shakeri told investigators that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him in September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to monitor and kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.

The official was quoted by Shakeri as saying that, "money’s not an issue."

Shakeri told investigators the official told him that if he could not put together a plan within the seven-day timeframe, then the plot would be paused until after the election because the official assumed Trump would lose and that it would be easier to kill him then, the complaint said.

The US government said Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran.

Lawyers for the two other defendants, identified as Jonathan Loadholt and Carlisle Rivera, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Iran's UN Mission also declined to comment.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the president-elect was aware of the assassination plot and nothing will deter him, "from returning to the White House and restoring peace around the world."

Shakeri, an Afghan national who immigrated to the US as a child but was later deported after spending 14 years in prison for robbery, also told investigators that he was tasked by his Revolutionary