Iran denies claims of assassination plot against Trump

Iran has strongly rejected claims of an alleged assassination attempt targeting former President Donald Trump in the United States just weeks before the 2024 presidential election.

The denial came after the U.S. Justice Department unsealed criminal charges that included details of a plot supposedly backed by Iran to kill Trump before the November 5 election.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei dismissed the allegations as “completely baseless and unsubstantiated.”

The charges, filed in a criminal complaint in federal court in New York City, allege that an unnamed official from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had instructed a contact to surveil and ultimately kill the businessman-turned-politician.

Baghaei labeled the accusations a “malicious conspiracy” orchestrated by “Zionist and anti-Iranian circles” aimed at further straining relations between the U.S. and Iran.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s allegations were made public just days after Trump was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election on November 3.

The charges, which describe an attempt to surveil Trump, came to light more than a month after the Justice Department accused Iran of being behind a failed assassination attempt on the former president.

This is not the first time the U.S. and Iran have been at odds over assassination claims. In July 2024, Trump survived an assassination attempt in which he sustained only minor injuries to his ear.

Earlier in August 2024, Iran dismissed allegations of involvement in a Pakistani individual’s plot to assassinate U.S. politicians, which was reportedly foiled by U.S. authorities.