Iran Accused of Sending Stolen Trump Campaign Material to Biden Campaign: US Agencies
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have jointly accused Iran of attempting to influence the upcoming US presidential election through cyberattacks, Al Jazeera reports.
According to a statement, Iranian hackers allegedly sent emails containing stolen, non-public material from former President Donald Trump’s campaign to those involved in then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
The agencies claim that these emails, sent between late June and early July, contained excerpts from stolen material and aimed to “stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.” They say that there is currently no evidence suggesting the recipients replied to the emails.
This revelation follows a previous August accusation by the US government, alleging that Iran launched cyberoperations targeting both presidential campaigns and conducted influence operations aimed at increasing political division within the country. Iran has vehemently denied any involvement in US affairs, calling the latest allegations “fundamentally unfounded” and “wholly inadmissible.”
The stolen material, according to the agencies, included text excerpts from Trump’s campaign. This has prompted accusations from Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, who claims the incident is “further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.” She demands that Biden and Harris clarify whether they used the hacked material to harm Trump’s campaign and calls for transparency on their knowledge of the incident.
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign, however, refuted the allegations, saying they were “not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign.” The spokesperson added that “a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt.”
Despite the denials, former President Trump himself addressed the accusations during a rally Wednesday night, claiming that Iran hacked his campaign to benefit the Democrats, calling it “foreign election interference.”
The accusation of Iranian interference comes at a time of heightened tension between the US and Iran, with a history of accusations of interference in each other’s affairs, ranging from the 1953 coup of Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh by the US to the 2020 killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani by the US.
