On August 3, 2024, former President Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance shook hands at a campaign rally at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Ben Gray/AP
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Ben Gray/AP
Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said Saturday it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.
The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iranian involvement, but the claim came a day after Microsoft released a report detailing attempts by foreign agents to interfere with the 2024 U.S. campaign.
It cited an example in June of Iran’s military intelligence “sending a spear phishing email from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser to a senior official in the presidential campaign.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States.” A spokesman for the National Security Council said in a statement that the committee takes any reports of inappropriate foreign interference “extremely seriously” and condemns any government or entity that seeks to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions, but said it would listen to the Justice Department on the matter. opinions.
When asked about the Trump campaign’s claims, Iran’s mission to the United Nations denied involvement. “We do not believe such reports,” the delegation told The Associated Press. “The Iranian government has neither the intention nor the motive to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.”
However, Iran has long been suspected of conducting hacking campaigns against enemies in the Middle East and beyond. Tehran has long threatened to retaliate for a 2020 drone strike ordered by Trump that killed prominent Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani.
The U.S. Justice Department last week unsealed criminal charges against a Pakistani national with ties to Iran who allegedly plotted assassinations of U.S. politicians, including potentially Trump, and attempted to hire alleged hit men who were actually undercover law enforcement officers. . Court documents in the case make clear that Iran wants to take action against perceived enemies of the regime and avenge Soleimani’s killing.
Politico first reported the hack on Saturday. The outlet reported that it began receiving emails from anonymous accounts on July 22. The source – an AOL email account named “Robert” – passed along what appeared to be a dossier of research conducted by the campaign on Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio. The document is dated February 23, almost five months after Trump selected Vance as his running mate.
“These documents were obtained illegally” with the “purpose of interfering with the 2024 elections and creating chaos in the entire democratic process,” Zhang said.
He pointed to the report released by Microsoft on Friday and its conclusion that “Iranian hackers compromised the account of a ‘senior official’ in the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincided with President Trump’s choice of vice presidential candidate.” The timing of people is very close.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror, just as he did during his first four years in the White House,” Zhang said. He also warned that “any media or news outlet that reprints documents or internal communications Everyone is taking orders from them.
Zhang did not immediately respond to questions about the campaign’s interaction with Microsoft on the matter. Microsoft said Saturday it had no comment beyond the blog post and Friday’s report.
“Foreign malign influence regarding the 2024 U.S. election started slowly but has steadily accelerated over the past six months, initially due to Russian actions but more recently due to Iranian activity,” Microsoft said in the report.
The analysis continued: “Iran’s online influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the past three U.S. election cycles. Iran’s operations are notable and differ from the Russian campaign in that they occurred during the election later in the season and using cyberattacks more to target electoral conduct rather than influencing voters.
“Recent activity suggests that the Iranian regime – and the Kremlin – may be similarly involved in the 2024 elections,” Microsoft concluded.
Specifically, the report details that in June 2024, Iran’s military intelligence agency Mint Sandstorm sent a phishing email to the U.S. presidential campaign through the compromised account of a former adviser.
“The phishing email contains a fake forward with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an attacker-controlled domain and then redirects to the listed domain,” the report states.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported hack or the Democratic candidate’s cybersecurity protocols.
