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Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential campaign said on Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran, but without providing direct evidence.
Shortly before the Republican campaign’s announcement, the news website Politico reported that the agency began receiving emails from anonymous sources in July that provided real documents on Trump’s inner workings, including a report on the “potential weaknesses” of running mate JD Vance.
“These documents were illegally obtained from foreign sources hostile to the United States in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election and sow chaos in our democratic process,” Trump campaign spokesman Siping Chang said in a statement.
In a post on his Truth Social app late Saturday, Trump said Microsoft had just notified the campaign that Iran had hacked one of its websites. He blamed Iran and added that they had “only access to public information.” He did not elaborate further on the hack.
Reuters has not independently verified the identities of the suspected hackers or their motives.
The Trump campaign pointed to a report released Friday by Microsoft researchers that said hackers linked to the Iranian government tried to break into the account of a “senior official” in the U.S. presidential campaign in June. The report said the hackers took over the account of a former political adviser and then used it to target the official. The report did not provide further details about the identity of the target.
After the report was released, a Microsoft spokesperson declined to name the targeted officials or provide further details.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said in an email that “the Iranian government does not have nor harbor any intention or motivation to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.”
In response to the Trump campaign’s allegations, the group added: “We do not believe such reports.”
In response to Microsoft’s findings on Friday, Iran’s mission to the United Nations told Reuters its cyber capabilities were “defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces” and that it had no plans to launch cyber attacks.
The former president had strained relations with Iran during his tenure. Under Trump, the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from the multilateral Iran nuclear deal.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will put an end to their reign of terror, just as he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr. Zhang said.
Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July. Although there is no indication that the suspects were linked to Iran, CNN reported last month that the United States had intelligence that Iran was plotting to assassinate Trump. Iran has denied the allegations.
Late last month, a senior intelligence official told reporters at a briefing that the intelligence community’s previous assessment was that Tehran and Moscow had the same preferences for presidential candidates as in past elections, with Iranian operatives seeking to dethrone the Republican slate and Russia working to discredit the Democratic party.
Read more by Euractiv
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