Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in the theft and distribution of sensitive internal documents.
The campaign has not provided any specific evidence of Iranian involvement, but the claim comes a day after Microsoft released a report detailing attempts by foreign agents to interfere in the U.S. campaign this year.
He cited one case in June of an Iranian military intelligence unit allegedly sending “a targeted phishing email to a senior presidential campaign official from a compromised email account of a former senior adviser.”
Republican campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States.” The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday from The Associated Press.
Politico first reported the hack on Saturday. The outlet said it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source — an AOL email address identified only as “Robert” — forwarded what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently compiled on Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. The document was dated Feb. 23, nearly five months before Trump chose him as his running mate.
“These documents were obtained illegally” and “were intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos in our entire democratic process,” Cheung said.
He highlighted Microsoft’s report released Friday and its findings that “Iranian hackers compromised the account of a ‘senior official’ in the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential candidate.”
“The Iranians know that President Trump will end their reign of terror as he did during his first four years in the White House,” Cheung said, adding a warning that “any media outlet or media organization that republishes internal documents or communications is doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”
In response to the Microsoft report, Iran’s UN mission denied that it intended to interfere or launch cyberattacks in the US presidential election.
Mr. Cheung did not immediately respond to questions about the campaign’s interactions with Microsoft on the matter. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Saturday.
Microsoft said in its report Friday that “foreign malign influence regarding the 2024 U.S. election started slowly but has steadily increased over the past six months driven initially by Russian operations but more recently by Iranian activity.”
“Iranian influence operations through cyberattacks have been a consistent feature of at least the last three U.S. election cycles. Iran’s operations have been notable and distinct from Russian campaigns in that they appear later in the election season and use cyberattacks more focused on conducting elections than on influencing voters,” the report notes.
“Recent activity suggests that the Iranian regime – as well as the Kremlin – may be equally engaged in the 2024 elections,” Microsoft concludes.
Specifically, the report details that in June 2024, an Iranian military intelligence unit, Mint Sandstorm, sent a phishing email to a U.S. presidential campaign through the compromised account of a former adviser.
“The phishing email contained a fake transmission with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to the listed domain,” the report said.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported hack or the Democratic nominee’s cybersecurity protocols.
Associated Press writers Mae Anderson in New York and Fatima Hussein in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, contributed to this report.