The Justice Department is filing criminal charges against Trump in connection with the Iranian assassination plot

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday disclosed an Iranian assassination plot to kill Donald Trump and charged a man who said he was hired by a government official to assassinate the Republican president-elect before this week's election.

Investigators learned of the plot to kill Trump when they interviewed Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government employee who was deported from the United States after being jailed on robbery charges.

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He told investigators that a contact in the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard ordered him last September to develop a plan within seven days to monitor and eventually kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan. Two other men who authorities say were recruited to take part in other attacks, including a prominent Iranian-American journalist, were also arrested on Friday. Shakeri remains in Iran.

“There are few actors in the world that pose as great a threat to the national security of the United States as Iran,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

The conspiracy, in which charges were dropped just days after Trump's victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to attack U.S. government officials, including Trump, on U.S. soil. Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with murder-for-hire because of ties to Iran.

Neumeister reported from New York.