US intelligence officials have confirmed that Iran was behind a hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, authorities said on Monday.
In a joint statement, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it attributed “recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign” to Iran, and that the intelligence community is “confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties”.
Iran’s efforts include “thefts and disclosures” and “are intended to influence the US election process”, the statement said.
The announcement comes a week after several news organizations, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Politico, reported that they had received internal campaign records, including a dossier on Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate.
The former president had blamed the Iranian government in the immediate aftermath, saying Microsoft informed the campaign about the hack. Trump also asserted that “only publicly available information” was taken.
Last week, Kamala Harris’s campaign said the FBI had warned that it had been targeted by foreign hackers. Officials with the vice-president’s campaign said its cybersecurity measured had successfully thwarted the hacking attempt.
The hacking efforts were part of a broader campaign to impact the US election, the intelligence officials’ statement said: “Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome. We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.”
The FBI has been in contact with victims of the hacking and “will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible”, the statement said, adding: “We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns.”
In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked, leading to the release of internal emails, which became a major controversy in the presidential campaign. Russian intelligence officers were later indicted for that hack.
