Donald Trump Assassination Plots: Inside Iran's 'Sick' Recruitment Of US 'Kill Teams'

US officials say Donald Trump has been the focus of repeated assassination plots by Iranian-linked operatives on American soil over at least five years, with federal court documents outlining how 'kill teams' were allegedly recruited, funded and directed to murder the former president and other senior politicians.

Iran's leadership has sought revenge on Donald Trump since he ordered the 2020 drone strike in Baghdad that killed Major General Qasem Soleimani, a powerful commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Donald Trump 'Kill Team' Plot Led From Tehran

According to document cited in US court filings, one of the most detailed plots involved an Afghan-born man named Farhad Shakeri, who had lived in the United States, spent 14 years in prison there and was later deported. From Tehran, where he was based, Shakeri allegedly spoke to the FBI by phone and set out how he was instructed by his IRGC handlers to assemble a team to assassinate Donald Trump.

Court documents say Shakeri was told to find US-based hitmen and come up with a plan to kill Trump on 7 October 2024, while he was still on the campaign trail. When Shakeri warned that the operation would cost a 'huge' amount of money, an IRGC official allegedly replied that 'we have already spent a lot of money ... so the money's not an issue'.

Papers from the trials of the alleged hitmen state that Shakeri understood the comment to mean the IRGC had already spent a 'significant sum' on attempts to murder Trump and was prepared to keep pouring money into the project.

He was also told he had just seven days to carry out the operation. If he failed within that window, Shakeri told the FBI his handler said the plan would be paused until after the 2024 election, because they believed Trump would lose and 'afterward, it would be easier to assassinate' him.

Claims of Tapping Americans

Shakeri claimed he turned to his criminal contacts from his time in US prisons, recruiting two New Yorkers, Carlisle 'Pop' Rivera and Jonathan Loadholt, as contract killers. The pair were initially promised $100,000 (£74,608) to eliminate a different target, an anti-regime activist, according to the same records. They were arrested before they could act.

Rivera was convicted of murder-for-hire and sentenced in January to 15 years in prison. Loadholt has also been found guilty and is due to be sentenced, with no date given. Shakeri himself has been charged in absentia with murder-for-hire, but remains in Iran.

US Says 'Mastermind' Behind Trump Plots Killed

The alleged plot directed by Shakeri is only one strand of what officials and analysts say has been a campaign of targeted violence. Yigal Carmon, a retired colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and terrorism expert quoted in the reporting, described the Iranian operatives as acting 'like the mafia'.

In his words, 'They have a list of the people they want dead and they have dispatched many of their spies to arrange to kill them.'

US investigators have not ruled out a possible Iranian role in the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was wounded and a spectator was killed. They reportedly told the former president months later that they could not exclude the involvement of Tehran, and that multiple 'kill teams' were believed to be plotting his death.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has since said that US and Israeli strikes on Tehran in late February killed the 'mastermind' of assassination plans against Trump. After the attack, which also killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior regime figures according to the reporting, Hegseth announced that the operative had been taken out.

He did not publicly name the individual, but US and Israeli sources cited in the article suggest it was either Shakeri or his superior, Rahman Mokadam, who is described as leading the IRGC special forces unit tasked with killing Trump, or possibly both men.

Iranian state media had remained defiant even as pressure on the regime mounted. As recently as January, the country broadcast an image of Donald Trump at the Butler rally, with a caption reading, 'This time it will not miss the target.'

Pakistani Merchant, Coded 'Clothing' And Another Donald Trump Plot

The second major case to reach court involves Pakistani national Asif Merchant, who travelled to the US in 2024 and, according to federal prosecutors, also set out to recruit a team of assassins to kill Donald Trump and other high-profile American politicians.

Merchant, who prosecutors say posed as a clothing trader, flew from Iran to Houston and then on to New York. In April 2024, he met a confidential source working with US authorities at a hotel in Nassau County, New York.

Court papers say he used a hotel napkin to sketch an outline of his plan, moving small objects around to represent targets, crowds and buildings while explaining that he intended to hire about 25 people to stage a fake protest as a diversion.

According to the documents, Merchant told the source that the protest would be a distraction so a hit squad could strike at their targets. He allegedly said those he wanted killed were the people 'hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world', adding, 'These are not normal people.' He described receiving 'clarity from God to carry out his mission,' the papers state.

Prosecutors say Merchant used coded language drawn from the clothing trade to disguise his intentions. 'T-shirt' meant a protest, which he referred to as the 'lightest work'. 'Flannel shirt' was code for theft, described as 'heavier work'. 'Fleece jacket' stood for the 'third task ... commit the act of the game', interpreted by investigators as murder. 'Denim jacket' referred to sending money. FBI agents later recovered a note with these coded phrases among his belongings.

At trial, Merchant represented himself and claimed he had been coerced by IRGC figures, saying through an Urdu interpreter that he 'was not wanting to do this so willingly'. He told the court Iranian officials had threatened his family in Iran, and that he also had a wife and family in Pakistan, according to the records. He claimed his handler in Tehran named Donald Trump, Joe Biden and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley as targets.

How Merchant Was Arrested

What Merchant did not know, prosecutors say, was that his supposed hitmen were undercover FBI agents. He was arrested and, on 6 March, convicted in a Brooklyn federal court of terrorism offences and murder-for-hire.

The reporting says he was promised up to $1 million (£746,085) if the operation succeeded.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, responding to the verdict, said, 'This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement.'

Merchant could be handed a life sentence, though a date for his sentencing has not yet been set, NY Post reported.