“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,” says campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
The Trump campaign revealed its internal communications have been hacked and leaked to the media and blamed Iran for the breach.
The campaign confirmed the incident after Politico reported Saturday that it had received a series of stolen documents.
Trump’s team claimed Iran may have been behind the hack but did not release any information on the perpetrator.
“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,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
We received internal Trump documents from “Robert”. The campaign just confirmed it was hacked.https://t.co/zim5C7IeCi
— POLITICO (@politico) August 10, 2024
“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found 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.”
Politico claims it began receiving the emails from a source calling himself “Robert” in late July, which included a research dossier on Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance.
From Politico:
On July 22, POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account. Over the course of the past few weeks, the person — who used an AOL email account and identified themselves only as “Robert” — relayed what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. A research dossier the campaign had apparently done on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, which was dated Feb. 23, was included in the documents. The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them and granted anonymity to describe internal communications. One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
The research dossier was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, with some — such as his past criticisms of Trump — identified in the document as “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” The person also sent part of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice presidential nomination.
When the outlet asked how he obtained the documents, the hacker refused to say, cautioning the network that publishing the documents would be illegal if he revealed where they came from.
“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,” he told Politico.
This comes days after reports emerged that a Pakistani national allegedly tied to Iran was arrested last month and charged in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate Trump.
Notably, the Pakistani suspect, 46-year-old Asif Raza Merchant, was allowed by the FBI to enter the United States in April under “significant public benefit parole” despite being on a terrorism watchlist and having recently traveled to Iran.
