Federal law enforcement officials revealed on Wednesday that Iranian hackers stole information from former President Donald Trump’s campaign and sent it to individuals connected with President Joe Biden’s campaign in late June and early July.
In a joint statement released on Wednesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said, “Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.”
Federal intelligence officials explained that “Iranian malicious cyber actors” have continued to interfere in the 2024 election by sending “stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations.”
Officials added, “This malicious cyber activity is the latest example of Iran’s multipronged approach, as noted in the joint August statement, to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”
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In a statement released after the revelation by the FBI, ODNI, and CISA, Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for the former president’s campaign, said, “This is further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because they know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror.”
Leavitt urged Biden and Harris to “come clean on whether they used the hacked material given to them by the Iranians to hurt President Trump” and to explain what they knew about the hacking incident and when they knew about it.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has denied knowledge of any materials “directly” sent to the Biden campaign as a result of the Iranian hack against the former president, according to Fox News. In a statement on Thursday, Morgan Finkelstein, a Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, said, “We have cooperated with the appropriate law enforcement authorities since we were made aware that individuals associated with the then-Biden campaign were among the intended victims of this foreign influence operation.”
Finkelstein added, “We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt.”
The Harris spokesperson criticized the “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity” by Iran that was reported by U.S. intelligence agencies on Wednesday, adding that it condemns “in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections.”
