Former president Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said Saturday that its internal communications had been hacked by “foreign sources.”
Several news outlets — including Politico, which first reported the news — received emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the campaign, including a research dossier on Trump running mate J. D. Vance.
“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung noted a Friday report by Microsoft that said a group run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had tried to hack an unnamed presidential campaign — though the report did not say whether the effort was successful. Microsoft said the group had gained access to the email account of former adviser to the unnamed campaign and the group then used that address in June to send an email to a senior official on the campaign that included a phishing link that could have allowed Iran to access the target’s other emails.
A person familiar with Microsoft’s work reportedly confirmed to the Washington Post that the campaign referenced in the report was the Trump campaign.
“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a Vice Presidential nominee. This comes after recent reports of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump around the same time as the Butler, PA tragedy,” Cheung said in a statement.
The Iranian mission to the U.N. dismissed the allegations. “The Iranian Government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election,” it said in a statement.
Politico reported that it had been receiving messages with internal information about the campaign from an anonymous sender since July 22, including the dossier on Vance and a partial research document about Senator Marco Rubio, who was also on Trump’s VP shortlist.
The Washington Post said it received a 271-page document about Vance that was labeled “privileged & confidential,” and laid out potential political vulnerabilities for the Ohio Republican.
The sender went by “Robert” and used an AOL email account, the outlet said.
“Consider me as an anonymous resource who has access to djtfp24 campaign. There are [sic] other stuff too, that I can send you, if this content is in your field of interest,” the alleged hacker said in an email to the Post.
“I hope you understand my limitations and my vulnerable position in the campaign,” the hacker said, declining to speak on the phone with a reporter.