Three Iranian nationals are facing criminal charges for allegedly hacking the Trump campaign and leaking stolen materials to the media to interfere with the 2024 presidential election and advance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s agenda.
Masoud Jalili, 36, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, 34, and Yaser Balaghi, 37, are being charged with allegedly participating in a yearslong hacking operation that targeted dozens of current and former U.S. officials, members of the press, nongovernmental organizations, and campaign officials, the Justice Department announced Friday.
The unsealed indictment against the IRGC-linked operatives includes charges of wire fraud, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and aggravated identity theft for the cyber attacks. Each one of the defendants would face a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.
“In August, the Intelligence Community reported an ongoing effort by Iran to compromise former President Trump’s campaign and to influence the U.S. election process,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in remarks delivered Friday afternoon.
“The Intelligence Community further reported that Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations,” he added.
The Iranian hackers sent unsolicited emails containing the Trump campaign’s materials to the Biden-Harris campaign around late June after beginning to target the Trump campaign the month before, according to the indictment. Biden-Harris campaign officials did not reply to the emails. Beginning in July, the hackers circulated to members of the media internal campaign materials on the Trump campaign’s potential vice presidential selection.
In carrying out the scheme, Iranian hackers impersonated numerous public figures such as current and former U.S. officials to trick victims into opening spear-phishing emails holding malware. They used multiple techniques to hide their identities such as virtual private networks, fake email accounts, and the accounts of compromised victims to advance the hacking scheme.
Starting in January 2020, the indicted Iranian operatives allegedly began the hacking campaign that targeted high-ranking government officials at numerous agencies, three media employees, and five members of nongovernmental organizations. They successfully hacked at least a dozen victims including multiple former CIA officials and a former State Department employee who helped the Trump administration negotiate the Abraham Accords.
“Today’s charges represent the culmination of a thorough and long-running FBI investigation that has resulted in the indictment of three Iranian nationals for their roles in a wide-ranging hacking campaign sponsored by the Government of Iran,” said FBI director Christopher Wray.
“The conduct laid out in the indictment is just the latest example of Iran’s brazen behavior. So today the FBI would like to send a message to the Government of Iran — you and your hackers can’t hide behind your keyboards.”
The hackers intended to undermine the Trump campaign and avenge the Trump administration’s killing of top IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani. Moreover, they hoped to gain access to the email accounts of former government officials to further IRGC objectives. None of the hackers have been arrested, and the State Department is awarding up to $10 million for information on their identities and whereabouts.
Politico first reported on the suspected hack in August after the outlet received an unsolicited email with stolen documents. The FBI and Google subsequently confirmed Iran’s ties to a spear-phishing operation that appears to have targeted both presidential campaigns. Microsoft has also warned about Iranian cyber campaigns seeking to undermine the upcoming presidential election and sow discord. The Justice Department thanked Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Yahoo for cooperating with the investigation.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want,” a Trump campaign spokesman previously told NR in a statement.
Left-wing independent journalist Ken Klippenstein published on his Substack newsletter the Trump campaign’s hacked dossier of the former president’s now–running mate, Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio). X suspended Klippenstein for revealing the dossier, a move that the platform chalked up to Klippenstein’s failure to redact Vance’s sensitive personal information. Klippenstein has since uploaded a redacted version of the dossier, but X has not yet reinstated him.