Donald Trump’s campaign said some of its internal communications were hacked and suggested they were targeted by Iranian agents.
The U.S. news site Politico reported Saturday that it had received an email containing campaign documents containing an internal investigation into Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, President Trump’s running mate.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States and were intended to interfere in the 2024 election,” a campaign spokesman told the BBC.
Politico said it had confirmed the authenticity of the documents. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.
The campaign did not provide details or evidence linking the leak of the documents to Iranian hackers or the Iranian government.
The company’s statement came a day after Microsoft released a report saying Iranian hackers targeted the campaign of an unnamed U.S. presidential candidate in June.
The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) said the attack involved sending spear-phishing emails – messages that appear trustworthy in order to trick targets into clicking on malicious links.
“Over the past few months, we have witnessed the emergence of significant influence operations by Iranian actors,” the MTAC report said.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chang said the June hacking attempt mentioned in the MTAC report “coincides closely with President Trump’s selection of his running mate.”
“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,” Chang said.
Politico said it began receiving emails in late July from an AOL email account from someone who identified himself only as “Robert.”
The 271-page file on Vance is based on publicly available information about his record and statements, the outlet said, and also included emails sent from the account that were part of an investigation into Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a running mate for vice president.
Presidential campaigns regularly vet potential running mates for potentially embarrassing revelations, and Politico reported that some of Vance’s well-known previous criticisms of Trump were listed as “potential weaknesses” in the document.
“Iranian cyber-based influence operations have been a consistent feature of at least the past three US elections,” the Microsoft report said.
Microsoft released a similar report during the 2020 election that found Iranian hackers were targeting the presidential campaign.
U.S. security sources have warned that Iran is plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump in an unrelated attack last month in Pennsylvania, and the Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran with plotting to assassinate U.S. officials, possibly including a former president.
The BBC has contacted Iranian authorities for comment.
