The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges Friday in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump before this week’s presidential election.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan alleges that an unnamed official in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed a contact this past September to put together a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump.

If the man, identified as Farjad Shakeri, was unable to create a plan by then, the complaint said, the official told him Iran would pause its plan until after the presidential election because the official believed Trump would lose and it would be easier to assassinate him then, the complaint said.

Shakeri told the FBI he didn’t plan to propose a plan to murder Trump within the seven days the official had requested, according to the complaint.

The unsealed charges also reveal that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) gave an operative the order to carry out a mass terror attack against Israelis in Sri Lanka, and offered him $1,000,000 to murder two American Jewish businessmen in New York City. The identities of the businessmen have not been revealed.

The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Trump’s defeat of Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil.

(YWN/AP)