Donald Trump campaign blames Iran for hack

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without providing direct evidence.

The campaign statement came shortly after the news site Politico revealed that it began receiving emails in July from an anonymous source offering authentic documents from inside Trump’s operations, including a report on “potential vulnerabilities” of his running mate J.D. Vance.

“These documents were illegally obtained from foreign sources hostile to the United States, with the intent of interfering with the 2024 election and wreaking havoc throughout our democratic process,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Reuters has not independently verified the identity of the suspected hackers or their motivation.

The Trump campaign pointed to a report released Friday by Microsoft researchers that said hackers linked to the Iranian government attempted to break into the account of a “senior official” in the U.S. presidential campaign in June.

The hackers took over an account belonging to a former political adviser and then used it to target the official, the report said. The report did not provide further details on the identities of the targets. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to name the targeted officials or provide additional details after the report was published.

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Iran’s foreign ministry and its representative to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In response to Microsoft’s findings, Iran’s mission to the UN in New York said on Friday that its cyber capabilities were “defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces” and that it had no plans to launch cyberattacks.

“The US presidential election is an internal matter in which Iran does not interfere,” the Iranian mission to the UN said.

The former US president had strained relations with Iran during his time in office. Under Trump, the US killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.

“The Iranians know that President Trump will end their reign of terror, just as he did during his first four years in the White House,” Cheung said.

Trump survived an assassination attempt in July. While there is no indication that the suspect is linked to Iran, CNN reported last month that the United States had information about an Iranian plot against Trump. Iran has denied the accusations.

Late last month, a senior intelligence official told reporters at a briefing that Tehran and Moscow were maintaining their same presidential preferences as in previous cycles, with Iranian operatives trying to dismantle the Republican ticket while Russia will work to smear Democrats, according to previous intelligence community assessments.