Former President Donald Trump’s latest campaign for the Oval Office has been hacked, a spokesperson confirmed Saturday. The campaign has linked the alleged hack to suspected threats from Iran.
Documents that apparently came from a Trump campaign official began showing up in a POLTICO email inbox from an anonymous account on July 22, said the outlet, which broke the news. It said Trump team spokesperson Steven Cheung said this: “These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process.”
According to POLTICO, the campaign pointed to a Microsoft report issued Friday about hackers from Iran targeting the 2024 presidential election.
“Today we’re sharing intelligence about activity we’ve been tracking that increasingly points to Iran’s intent to influence this year’s US presidential election. In recent weeks, groups connected with the Iranian government have upped two kinds of activity,” said the blog post. “First, they’ve laid the groundwork for influence campaigns on trending election-related topics and begun to activate these campaigns in an apparent effort to stir up controversy or sway voters – especially in swing states. Second, they’ve launched operations that Microsoft assesses are designed to gain intelligence on political campaigns and help enable them to influence the elections in the future.”
However, POLTICO noted that it had not “independently verified the identity of the hacker or their motivation,” and that the Trump team did not offer any further information linking the hack to Iran.
Previously, POLITICO reported on the “U.S. intelligence community receiving increasing evidence suggesting Iran was working on plots to kill Trump in retaliation for his decision to order the assassination of Iranian military officer Qassem Soleimani in 2020,” the outlet added.
“Cheung declined to say whether the campaign had been in contact with Microsoft or law enforcement about the breach, saying it would not discuss such conversations,” said POLITICO. It also said Iranian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Included in the documents sent to POLTICO via the anonymous AOL email account from an individual who identified themselves only as “Robert” was a 217-page dossier on Trump’s VP pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). This dossier was dated Feb. 23.
“The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them and granted anonymity to describe internal communications,” POLITICO said. “One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.”
When asked how they obtained the documents, “Robert” reportedly said: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”
This breach echoes the 2016 presidential election, when top Democratic Party officials were hacked and information about Hillary Clinton’s campaign was exposed.
“National security officials later blamed Russia for orchestrating the hacking effort. Many of those emails were later disseminated to WikiLeaks, a website that publishes leaked documents, and were published in the run-up to Election Day with an eye toward embarrassing Clinton’s political operation,” POLITICO noted. In 2017, Special counsel Robert Mueller “described a Trump campaign that encouraged the hack and was eager to capitalize on the materials,” and indicated that efforts from Trump and his team hampered the investigation.
This reported hack comes during a particularly busy election season. Trump has survived an assassination attempt and will face a different Democratic candidate than he expected just a few months ago, with Vice President Kamala Harris soon expected to become the Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out. This week, she has pulled ahead of Trump at the polls.
News of the hack also came as Vance received online ridicule for a gaffe at a Philadelphia, Pa., rally that left him with a backdrop that appeared to simply read “KAMALA” behind him (it was supposed to say “KAMALA CHAOS” but was partially obscured), according to USA Today.