The Trump campaign confirmed that internal communications were hacked and leaked to the press.
Politico confirmed the cybercrime after receiving a series of stolen documents on Saturday.
The Trump team believes Iran may have been behind the hack, but has not released information about the perpetrator.
Politico report:
The campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing a Microsoft report Friday that said Iranian hackers “sent spear-phishing emails to senior campaign officials in June.” Microsoft did not identify the campaign that targeted the emails and declined to comment Saturday. POLITICO has not independently verified the hackers’ identities or motives, and Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung declined to comment on whether there was additional information supporting the campaign’s suggestion that Iran was the target.
“These documents were illegally obtained from a foreign source hostile to the United States, with the intent to interfere with the 2024 election and cause disruption throughout the Democratic Party process,” Cheung said in a statement to the outlet. “A new report from Microsoft on Friday revealed that Iranian hackers compromised the accounts of ‘senior officials’ of the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, coinciding with the timing of President Trump’s selection of his vice presidential candidate.”
Cheung did not say whether the campaign had reached out to Microsoft for confirmation.
Politico claims it began receiving the emails in late July.
The report states:
On July 22, POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account. The person, who had been using an AOL email account for the past several weeks and identified only as “Robert,” forwarded what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. The documents included a Feb. 23 investigative report the campaign had written about Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. The document is authentic, according to two people familiar with the document and who were granted anonymity to describe internal communications. One of them described the report as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
The investigative report was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, some of which, such as his past criticisms of Trump, were identified in the document as “potential vulnerabilities.” The individual also sent parts of the investigative report to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice presidential nomination.
When Politico asked how he obtained the documents, the hacker replied, “I suggest you stop wondering where I got them. Any answer to that question will compromise me and also legally restrict you from releasing the documents.”
