Iranian fundraiser collects $40 million for Trump assassination

It looks like any online fundraiser, remarkable at first glance only for its eye-popping total: $40.2 million. Its purpose, however, is unlike anything ever seen on GoFundMe.

An Iranian website claims it is raising money to pay for the assassination of President Donald Trump, reportedly labeled by a group of prominent clerics as an “infidel combatant” who deserves death.

The fundraising campaign began days after a senior Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makeram Shirazi, issued a fatwa against Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A fatwa is a religious decree that can sometimes serve as a call to violence.

Shirazi declared Trump and Netanyahu “warlords” and “enemies of God” after U.S. warplanes bombed Iranian nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic Republic. Those offenses can be punishable by death.

‘Anyone who brings the head of Trump’

The Iranian fundraiser, first reported by the London-based news outlet Iran International, appears on the website thaar.ir. The site includes a photo of Trump, his hair disheveled and crosshairs superimposed over his right temple.

The site does not list its contributors, and the amount it claims to have raised cannot be verified.

“The mentioned amount will be delivered by the committed individuals to every free person who carries out the verdict of justice,” the site states. “This campaign is not funding terrorism, it is funding the fight against U.S. state terrorism.”

The fundraising campaign coincides with increasing threats against Trump from Iranian clerics.

In a speech this week, according to Iran International, Mansour Emami, provincial director of the Islamic Propagation Organization in West Azerbaijan, offered a reward worth the equivalent of $1.1 million “to anyone who brings the head of Trump.”

On Iranian state television, Iran International reported, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a former senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggested Trump could be the target of an assassination attempt at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“Trump has done something so that he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago,” Larijani said. “As he lies there with his stomach to the sun, a small drone might hit him in the navel. It’s very simple.”

It was not clear whether Larijani was speaking about specific plans by the Iranian military.

Asked about the comments by Fox News, Trump said, “Yeah, I guess it’s a threat. I’m not sure it’s a threat, actually. But perhaps it is.”

Iranian leader downplays threat

Trump has reportedly been targeted by Iran since 2020, when he ordered the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the last year of his first term.

U.S. intelligence officials have also warned former aides to Trump — including John Bolton, once the national security adviser, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — that they faced Iranian assassination threats. When Trump returned to office this year, he ended security details for both former aides.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian downplayed any menace to Trump during an interview this week with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News.

“To the best of my knowledge,” Pezeshkian told Carlson, that Iran’s clerics “have not issued decrees or fatwas against any individuals, against Donald Trump. First off, it has nothing to do with the Iranian government or to his imminence, the supreme leader of Iran.”

Pezeshkian suggested Israel was spreading claims that Iran has advocated for Trump’s assassination.

“This is actually what Netanyahu is trying to insinuate and make your people or the president of your country to believe,” he said. “But this is wrong.”