The FBI confirmed Monday it is investigating the alleged hacking of sensitive Trump campaign documents, which the campaign blamed on Iran over the weekend.
“We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter,” the FBI said in a brief statement quoted by The Washington Post.
CNN reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter, that investigators suspect that the hackers were able to compromise the personal email account of someone associated with the Trump campaign.
The hackers used access to the breached personal email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official as part of a persistent effort to access campaign networks, one of the sources said.
The FBI also briefed the Biden-Harris campaign in June about Iranian hackers targeting that campaign, one of the sources said.
“Our campaign vigilantly monitors and protects against cyber threats, and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems,” a Harris campaign official told CNN.
News of the investigation comes two days after the Trump campaign said it had been hacked, after reporters received copies of an internal campaign vetting document on Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung connected the hack with Microsoft's warning on Friday that Iran was attempting to interfere with the 2024 US presidential elections.
Earlier on Monday, the US State Department warned Iran of consequences over election interference in the wake of the hacking of the Trump campaign.
"These latest attempts to interfere in US elections are nothing new for the Iranian regime, which, from our vantage point, has undermined democracies -- or attempted to -- for many years now," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters, according to AFP.
Patel said the United States has raised concerns in the past about Iranian cyber activity.
"We continue to have a number of tools in our tool belt to hold the Iranian regime accountable, and we won't hesitate to use them," Patel said.
At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby referred questions on responsibility to the FBI and Justice Department but pointed to an earlier intelligence report that Iran "is working to influence" the presidential election.