The New York Times has confirmed it received the same or similar trove of Donald Trump presidential campaign documents as other media outlets did, after Microsoft confirmed that a “high-ranking official” at a presidential campaign was a hacking target.
For the third US election in a row, hacked campaign information by a foreign power is now likely to feature as potential disruption. The Trump campaign has said its email systems were breached by hackers working for Iran.
Politico reported getting emails from someone who identified themselves only as “Robert” and sent internal campaign communications and a 271-page-long research dossier on Trump’s running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, that was part of his vetting process. The news organisation said the Vance profile was “based on publicly available information”.
On Monday, two Democratic lawmakers with experience on intelligence and security committees called for information about the latest breach to be released publicly.
The California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell posted on social media that he was seeking a briefing on the breach, and that while he considered Trump “the most despicable person ever to seek office” – someone who had also called for hacking in the past – “that doesn’t mean America ever tolerates foreign interference.”
Adam Schiff, the Democrat of California, urged Department of Homeland Security officials to declassify information on the foreign nature of the hack.
Schiff said the US intelligence community “moved much too slow to properly identity the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia” in 2016 and “should act quickly here”.
He also said that in that year: “The Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference, took advantage of it and then sought to deny it, much to the detriment of the country.”
The Trump campaign’s announcement that its systems had been breached came after news organizations asked questions about Vance when he was a candidate for vice-president that appeared to come from internal vetting documents.
The Washington Post said it had received a 271-page document marked “privileged & confidential” from an anonymous AOL customer known as Robert. Politico later said it had been receiving documents from someone who called themselves Robert since 22 July.
Trump has said that only publicly available information was taken from its systems. “They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature,” he posted on Saturday evening. “Iran and others will stop at nothing.”
A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said: “Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”
While Microsoft has not confirmed that the Trump campaign was the target, it has said that an Iranian group run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was behind a June attack on a presidential campaign.
But the hack of the Trump campaign will serve as a warning that the last three months of the 2024 election could be as bumpy as the previous two elections. In 2016 the Hillary Clinton campaign was hacked, allegedly by Russian agents, and hundreds of emails were published by WikiLeaks. Twelve Russian military intelligence officers were later indicted for their alleged roles in interfering in the US election.
In 2020, the contents of a laptop later confirmed as belonging to Hunter Biden were released and became subject of a controversy, not only for its salacious leaked content but for a letter signed by former intelligence officials claiming that the leak had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
On Saturday, a spokesman for the national security council said Joe Biden’s administration “strongly condemns any foreign government or entity who attempts to interfere in our electoral process or seeks to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions”. The FBI has yet to comment.
