The Trump campaign claimed that its internal communications were hacked by “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” according to a recent report.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung confirmed to Politico that “documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources” that were deemed “hostile” to the nation. The statement from Cheung came after the outlet had reportedly received “emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from former President Donald Trump’s campaign beginning around July 22.”
Included in the documents sent to the outlet was a “research dossier” that the campaign had conducted on Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s pick for vice president:
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 interal communications. One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
A portion of a “research document” about Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was reportedly also among the documents sent to the outlet.
“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,” Cheung said in a statement to the outlet. “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.”
Cheung’s statement comes after Microsoft released a nine-page report on Friday revealing that it had been “tracking” activity that “increasingly points to Iran’s intent to influence this year’s US presidential election.”
In a blog from Microsoft, the company discussed activities by several groups with connections to the “Iranian government.”
One of the groups was reported to have “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor,” according to Microsoft:
Yet another Iranian group, this one connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior advisor. The email contained a link that would direct traffic through a domain controled by the group before routing to the website of the provided link. Within days of this activity, the same group unsuccessfully attempted to log into an account belonging to a former presidential candidate. We’ve since notified those targeted.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Cheung added.
In July, United States officials revealed that they had received information about a potential assassination plot on Trump by Iran.
The Department of Justice recently revealed that a Pakistani man, with alleged connections to Iran, was arrested and charged in connection to a potential plot to assassinate Trump and several other U.S. officials.