CNN
—

The Justice Department on Friday announced federal charges against three people involved in a foiled Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump before the presidential election.

According to court documents, Iranian officials in September asked one of the indicted men, Farhad Shakeri, to focus on surveilling and ultimately killing Trump. Shakeri is still at large in Iran, the Justice Department said.

This is a newly revealed plot and marks yet another alleged attempt on Trump’s life by the Iranian regime.

Prosecutors allege that Shakeri – who took part in recorded conversations with law enforcement officers – was originally charged by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with carrying out other killings of American and Israeli citizens in the US. But IRGC officials told Shakeri on October 7 to focus solely on Trump, court documents show, and that he had seven days to formulate an assassination plan.

Shakeri, an Afghan national living in Tehran, told investigators that if he failed to come up with a plan within that time frame, the IRGC would wait until after the presidential election to move forward because they believed Trump would lose.

The two other indicted individuals, Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, who are U.S. citizens, were arrested in New York and are accused of helping the Iranian government surveil an individual U.S. citizen of Iranian descent. They made their first court appearance on Thursday, the Justice Department said, and are being held pending trial.

Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray denounced the Iranian government’s continued threats against individuals in the United States in statements released Friday.

“Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Garland said. “The Department of Justice has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was directed by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including newly elected President Donald Trump .”

The U.S. government has repeatedly expressed concern that Iran could try to retaliate for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a top general in the IRGC, by trying to kill Trump, who ordered the strike, or his assassinate former advisors.

In a series of five interviews with the FBI, Shakeri said he met a senior member of the IRGC through his work in Iran’s oil and fuel sector. When the official learned that Shakeri had previously lived in New York, he asked for help in “investigating” individuals in the United States. Shakeri said he met the official more than a dozen times during meetings at various restaurants.

According to court documents, Shakeri relied on a “network of criminal associates” he met during his time in the New York prison system to provide Iranian officials with agents in the U.S. and to help conduct surveillance and plot assassinations on their behalf.

Shakeri would pay these criminal associates, as well as his two co-conspirators, to monitor the victims who tried to kill Iranian officials, court documents show. Iranian-American journalist and political activist Masih Alinejad confirmed on Friday that she was one of the targets.

According to the Justice Department, Alinejad has been the target of several assassination plots.

The two defendants allegedly followed Alinejad during a lecture earlier this year, as well as at her home in New York.

In one voice memo between the defendants, Rivera told the others, “This motherfucker is hard to catch, man. And because she’s hard to catch, there won’t be a simple pull-up unless there’s luck in the draw. Unless there is luck of the draw.”

In other memos, the defendants discussed where Alinejad spent her time in her home and how to best carry out the murder.

According to the complaint, Rivera and Loadholt discussed a $100,000 payment with Shakeri to “take care of it already,” but wanted the payment up front.

IRGC officials, prosecutors say, also asked Shakeri to help plan a mass shooting targeting Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka, prompting U.S. and Sri Lankan authorities to warn travelers of the threat of an attack. Shakeri also said he was tasked with monitoring and killing two individuals described only as Jewish businessmen living in New York City.

This story has been updated with additional details.