Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign says that its email messages were hacked, and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.
Politico was the first to report on the hack, with the outlet stating that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States… these documents were obtained illegally and intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process. 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. The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House.”
The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iran’s involvement, but the claim comes a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents’ attempts to interfere in the U.S. campaign in 2024. In its report, Microsoft cited an instance of an Iranian military intelligence unit in June sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.” The analysis continued: “Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three U.S. election cycles. Iran’s operations have been notable and distinguishable from Russian campaigns for appearing later in the election season and employing cyberattacks more geared toward election conduct than swaying voters. Recent activity suggests the Iranian regime — along with the Kremlin — may be equally engaged in election 2024.”
Cheung pointed to the Microsoft report issued Friday and its conclusions that “Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.” Said Cheung: “The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House … any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”
A National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement: “As we have said many times, the Biden-Harris Administration strongly condemns any foreign government or entity who attempts to interfere in our electoral process or seeks to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”
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