The FBI and U.S. intelligence concluded in a Monday statement that Iran recently hacked former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
The Trump campaign declared in early August that it had been hacked by Iran and that confidential documents had been leaked to the press. The FBI opened an investigation into the matter and said Monday that Iran was responsible for the attack, though it did not specify how it came to that conclusion or the nature of the information had been compromised.
“We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting Presidential campaigns,” a joint statement from the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reads. “This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the [intelligence community] attributes to Iran.”
Today, we released a joint statement with our partners at @FBI & @ODNIgov about Iran’s attempt to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions: https://t.co/3j4abRkEkH pic.twitter.com/2kuPg3bzUj
— Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (@CISAgov) August 19, 2024
Further, U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran has targeted “the Presidential campaigns of both political parties,” according to the statement.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations quickly denied the allegations, calling them “unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing” and challenging the U.S. to provide evidence, according to The Associated Press.
The Trump campaign claimed on Aug. 10 that an Iranian operative had hacked their platform. Confidential information from the campaign was leaked to a variety of media outlets, including Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Those outlets have not shared what information was leaked with them, according to the AP.
Politico reported that it started receiving emails in late July from an anonymous email account only identified as “Robert”; the emails contained a research file on Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who the Trump campaign had been vetting alongside other contenders in recent months before he was chosen by Trump to be his vice presidential nominee. When asked via email how the “Robert” received the documents, the individual replied, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from.”
Iran has broadly been involved in interference efforts this election cycle against both parties, including through cyberwarfare campaigns and assassination plots. A Pakistani man linked to Iran who had been orchestrating an assassination attempt against Trump was caught and charged by the U.S. in early August.
The Islamic Republic has long sought revenge against Trump and some in his orbit over the 2020 U.S. assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the former leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a famous figure among the Iranian public.
“The [intelligence community] has previously reported that Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome,” the joint statement from the FBI, ODNI and CISA reads.
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