The Trump campaign has confirmed that internal communications have been hacked and leaked to the media.
The campaign confirmed the cybercrime after Politico received a series of stolen documents on Saturday.
Trump’s team believes Iran may have been behind the hack but has not released any information on the perpetrator.
Politico reports:
The campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing a Microsoft report on Friday that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.” Microsoft did not identify the campaign targeted by the email and declined to comment Saturday. POLITICO has not independently verified the identity of the hacker or their motivation, and a Trump campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, declined to say if they had further information substantiating the campaigns’ suggestion that it was targeted by Iran.
“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 provided 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 did not comment about if the campaign has been in touch with Microsoft to confirm.
Politico claims it began receiving the emails in late July.
The report states:
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 internal communications. One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
The research dossier was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, with some — such as his past criticisms of Trump — identified in the document as “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” The person also sent part of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice presidential nomination.
When Politico asked how the documents were obtained, the hacker replied, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”
