The Trump campaign on Saturday said that a foreign hacker had breached its systems and gained access to internal communications.
Politico began receiving leaked campaign documents from an anonymous source on July 22, according to the news outlet’s report on Saturday. Politico first reported the campaign’s acknowledgement of the hack.
“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,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
CNBC has not independently verified the source of the hack.
The Trump campaign’s statement implied that Iranian hackers were behind the breach but did not provide any direct evidence supporting that claim.
Rather, Cheung cited a Microsoft report dated Friday warning that Iranian hackers had launched several different attempts to influence the U.S. presidential election, including sending a phishing email in June to a high-ranking campaign official from the hacked account of a senior advisor.
Microsoft declined to provide additional comment on whether the Trump campaign had been a target of the Iranian hacking plot.
Earlier this summer, U.S. officials became aware of an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump. Officials learned of the plot in the weeks ahead of the attempted assassination of Trump at his Pennsylvania rally in July, although no connection has yet been established between that shooter and Iran.
Politico reported that it began receiving Trump campaign documents from an anonymous email account identifying only as “Robert.” Among the documents was a 271-page dossier on Trump’s now-running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, along with another file on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was on the short list of VP contenders.
When Politico asked the anonymous source how they accessed the documents, the person reportedly said, “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.”
Politico declined to provide additional comment on whether it was working with the Trump campaign and law enforcement to investigate the hack.
The campaign’s reported hack comes as the Federal Bureau of Investigation issues warnings about cybersecurity threats around the world, especially targeting U.S. election outcomes.
“We should absolutely expect that foreign actors will attempt to influence and that they will interfere,” Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said at a January congressional hearing, referring to the 2024 election. “To be very clear, Americans should have confidence in the integrity of our election infrastructure because of the enormous amount of work that’s been done.”
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