Former President Donald Trump‘s campaign was hacked and had confidential memos sent to some news outlets over the weekend, but the hack appears more complicated than it originally seemed.
Over the weekend, the Trump campaign confirmed that it had been hacked after Politico and the Washington Post reported they had received materials from an individual only identified as “Robert.” The mystery account sent a 271-page vetting document about Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), via an AOL email account. The materials were based on publicly available information about Vance.
Microsoft revealed on Friday that Iran had sent a spear phishing email to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior adviser. However, at the time, they did not publicly identify which campaign had been affected. It only became clear in the days to follow that it was Trump’s campaign that was affected, and more details have followed.
Here is what we know so far about the hack of the Trump campaign.
While the Trump campaign was compromised through the attack, President Joe Biden’s campaign, which has since morphed into Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign following Biden’s decision to drop out, was also targeted.
The Washington Post reported that three Biden-Harris campaign staffers had received spear phishing emails that were designed to look like authentic emails. The report suggested that the attempts were not successful in breaching the Democratic campaign.
Harris’s camp said on Tuesday that it was contacted by the FBI in July that it was “targeted by a foreign actor influence operation,” according to NBC News.
Trump’s campaign and the former president himself have blamed Iran for the hack, with Trump posting on Truth Social on Saturday night that Microsoft had informed his campaign Iran was behind the hack.
“We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government – Never a nice thing to do!” Trump posted. “They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature. Iran and others will stop at nothing, because our Government is Weak and Ineffective, but it won’t be for long. What Iran doesn’t realize is that I will make the World a better and safer place, and that’s good for them, also!”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung also said in a statement to the Washington Examiner over the weekend that “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.”
The FBI confirmed on Monday that it is investigating attempts to hack into the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns.
The investigation from the federal agency began in June over suspicions that Iran was seeking to illegally obtain data from both campaigns, according to the Washington Post.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
During the 2016 election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked and the information obtained was released by WikiLeaks.
With the 2024 hack of the Trump campaign, the media outlets that received materials from the hack did not report the materials but instead reported on the apparent hack of the Trump campaign.