Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was hacked and internal campaign communications were leaked to Iranian operatives, a spokesman said Saturday.
Politics First reported A message that started receiving emails from an anonymous account containing internal conversations. The former president’s campaign manager cited a Microsoft report that Iranian operatives tried to access an account belonging to the former presidential candidate, which the company declined to name.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, to interfere with the 2024 election and to sow confusion throughout our democratic process,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to Politico.
“A new report from Microsoft on Friday found that Iranian hackers breached the account of a ‘senior official’ in the US presidential campaign in June 2024, coinciding closely with President Trump’s choice of vice presidential nominee,” the report adds.
It’s unclear whether the Trump campaign contacted Microsoft or law enforcement. The FBI said it was aware of the reports but declined to comment further. The Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency declined to comment.
Trump’s presidency became the center of controversy in 2017 when the Justice Department launched an investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Special counsel Robert Mueller later determined that Trump and his associates encouraged the hack, but there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the former president.
The previous year, the Democratic National Convention was hacked by what intelligence officials concluded were Russian operatives, and bad actors produced sensitive information related to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The characterization for Iran is consistent with recent CNN reports The Secret Service stepped up security around Trump’s 2024 campaign events after intelligence officials confirmed Iran was trying to assassinate the former president. The report says there is no indication that Thomas Matthew Crooks — who tried to kill Trump last month — was linked to Iran.
“Here’s to the Russification of Iranian information apps! A bad business; expanding and diversifying efforts to further divide Americans and undermine democracy,” said Chris Krebs, former director of CISA. Post on X.
Trump Removed Krebs In 2020, he led a vigorous post-election campaign to dispel misinformation about unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud propagated by Trump and his then-White House allies.
When Politico pressed the hacker, known only as “Robert,” about how the documents were obtained, he wrote back, “I suggest you not be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question would compromise me and legally prevent you from releasing them.” controlling.
The stolen documents reportedly included an analysis of Trump’s run against Ohio Senator JD Vance.
The Islamic Republic’s Interests Section — a division of the Pakistani embassy in Washington that serves as the Iranian government’s de facto representative in the United States — did not return a request for comment.
“We can’t speak to the Trump campaign’s cybersecurity, and we don’t know how the documents were obtained. However, this should be a wake-up call to all campaigns, large and small, that they are targets of nation states, hacktivists and cybercriminals,” said the president of the nonprofit Defending Digital Campaigns. CEO Michael Kaiser said.
“Unfortunately, this is not the new normal. This is normal,” said Jake Brown, the former White House principal deputy national cyber director who helped create the first “voting machine hacking village” at the annual DEF CON hacking conference.
According to the latest intelligence community findings, Iran “may be attempting to carry out influence activities” aimed at US elections.
