It all began on July 22, when the news website Politico received internal documents from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign team sent by a certain "Robert," from an AOL email address. These included a 271-page document containing information that was publicly available, listing the "potential vulnerabilities" of J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's future running mate, who had criticized him in the past.
The news site also received documents concerning Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida and unsuccessful candidate for vice president. Politico investigated and was able to confirm that the documents were genuine, but was intrigued by the identity and motivations of the mysterious Robert. The latter replied brusquely, according to Politico's account: "I suggest you don't be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question will compromise me and also legally restrict you from publishing them."
On Saturday, August 10, Trump's campaign team claimed that its site had been hacked by a foreign power, ostensibly meaning Iran. Documents belonging to the campaign "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 spokeperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. "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," he added.
Tehran has long threatened to retaliate against Trump following a drone strike that he ordered that killed Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.
Cheung, who provided no evidence of Iranian involvement, referred to a report published Friday, August 9, by Microsoft, in which the company claims to have uncovered evidence that the Iranians had attempted in June to hack the email account of a "high-ranking official" on a presidential campaign.
A "group, this one connected with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign," and another "Iranian group compromised an account of a county-level government employee," Microsoft's report states. A source at Microsoft confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the report is referring to the Trump team.
A spokesperson for the US National Security Council said in a statement that it takes "any reports of [foreign interference] extremely seriously," but said it deferred to the Justice Department on the specifics. The Iranian mission to the United Nations told the Associated Press that it did "not accord any credence to such reports." It added, "The Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election."
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