Iranian hackers attempted to engage US President Joe Biden’s campaign by offering information stolen from former President Donald Trump’s campaign, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
According to statements made by the FBI and other federal agencies, the emails were sent without being solicited, with the aim of meddling in the 2024 election.
Officials confirmed that none of the recipients responded, meaning the hacked information did not come to light in the final months of the tightly contested election.
The emails were sent in late June and early July to individuals who were once connected to Biden’s campaign before his exit from the race, a US government statement said, adding the emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails.”
This revelation adds to a series of warnings from officials about Iran’s persistent efforts to disrupt the 2024 election, including a previous hack-and-leak operation that the FBI and other agencies tied to Tehran. AP reported last week that the Justice Department is preparing charges related to that breach.
In joint statements, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency emphasized that the hack of Trump’s campaign and a failed attempt to breach the Biden-Harris campaign were part of a broader effort to shake voters' confidence and sow division.
On August 10, the Trump campaign revealed it had been hacked, stating that Iranian operatives had stolen and disseminated sensitive internal documents.
Several media outlets — Politico, The New York Times, and The Washington Post — were given confidential materials from the campaign. So far, none have disclosed details about the leaked documents.
Investigators believe the suspected Iranian hackers in June breached the personal email account of longtime Trump ally and political operative Roger Stone, and then used that email account to try to break into the account of a senior Trump campaign official.
Politico reported that on July 22, it started receiving emails from an anonymous source using an AOL account under the name “Robert.” The emails included what appeared to be a research dossier on Republican vice-presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance. The document, dated February 23, was created nearly five months before Trump chose Vance as his running mate.
Responding to Wednesday’s announcement, the Trump campaign said, “This is further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because they know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror. Kamala and Biden must come clean on whether they used the hacked material given to them by the Iranians to hurt President Trump. What did they know and when did they know it?”
Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris’s campaign, said the campaign has cooperated with law enforcement since learning that people associated with Biden’s team were among the recipients of the emails.
“We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said.