Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said that it has been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.
The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iran’s involvement, but Saturday’s claim comes a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents’ attempts to interfere in the 2024 US campaign.
It cited an instance in June of an Iranian military intelligence unit sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior adviser”.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States”.
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The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Politico first reported on the hack on Saturday. The outlet reported that it began receiving emails on July 22nd 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, Ohio senator JD Vance.
The document was dated February 23rd, almost five months before Mr Trump selected Mr Vance as his running mate.
“These documents were obtained illegally” and “intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Mr Cheung said.
He pointed to the Microsoft report issued on Friday and its conclusions that “Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of president [Donald] Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee”.
“The Iranians know that president [Donald] Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr Cheung said, adding a warning that “any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want”.
In response to Microsoft’s report, Iran’s United Nations mission denied it had plans 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 said on Saturday it had no comment beyond its blog post and Friday report.
In that report, Microsoft stated that “foreign malign influence concerning the 2024 US election started off slowly but has steadily picked up pace over the last six months due initially to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity”.
The analysis continued: “Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US 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,” Microsoft concluded.
Specifically, the report detailed that in June 2024, an Iranian military intelligence unit, Mint Sandstorm, sent a phishing email to an American presidential campaign via the compromised account of a former adviser.
“The phishing email contained a fake forward with a hyperlink that directs traffic through an actor-controlled domain before redirecting to the listed domain,” the report states.
Vice-president Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reported hacking or on the Democratic nominee’s cybersecurity protocols.
It comes as Harris promised on Saturday to work to eliminate taxes on tips paid to restaurant workers and other service employees.
The vow echoes a pledge that her opponent in November, Donald Trump, has made, creating a rare instance of political overlap from both sides.
Ms Harris made the announcement at a rally on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) where the economy relies heavily on the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries.
Mr Trump vowed essentially the same thing at his own rally in the city in June – though neither he nor Ms Harris are likely to be able to fully do that without actions from Congress.
“It is my promise to everyone here that, when I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America,” Ms Harris said.
“Including to raise the minimum wage and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.”
Mr Trump responded on his social media site a short time later, posting that Harris “just copied my NO TAXES ON TIPS policy”.
“The difference is, she won’t do it, she just wants it for Political Purposes!,” the former president wrote. “This was a TRUMP idea – She has no ideas, she can only steal from me.”
Ms Harris also promised to “address the issue of immigration”, leaning heavily into the issue as she did the previous night during a rally in Arizona.
“We know that our immigration system is broken, and we know what it takes to fix it,” Ms Harris told the crowd at UNLV. She also endorsed an “earned pathway to citizenship” for some people in the country illegally and slammed Mr Trump, who she said “talks a big game about border security but he does not walk the walk”.
The vice-president has in recent weeks tried to seize the political offensive on an issue that Mr Trump and top Republicans have frequently used to slam her and the Biden administration. In doing so, Ms Harris is hoping to drive a wedge with Republicans.
Because the vice-president’s portfolio in the Biden administration included the root causes of migration, and due to some of her comments before the 2020 election, many leading Republican voices have sought to portray her as weak on the southern border and enabling illegal immigration.
Mr Trump himself has said of Ms Harris: “As a border tsar, she’s been the worst border tsar in history, in the world history.”
The former president proposed mass deportations if he returns to the White House, but AP VoteCast found in 2020 that nearly 7-in-10 Nevada voters said that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be offered the chance to apply for legal status. – AP
