U.S. confirms Trump campaign claim it was breached by Iranian hackers

The U.S. government has formally endorsed former President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran hacked his campaign.

In a joint statement Monday, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Iran was behind attempts this year to hack presidential campaigns of both political parties.

“We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting Presidential campaigns,” the agencies said in the statement.

“This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the IC [intelligence community] attributes to Iran,” the statement continued. “The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process. It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.”

The same hackers were alleged by Google to have targeted the Biden-Harris campaign before President Joe Biden ended his run for re-election, but it’s not clear whether they were breached. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign previously said it had no indication it was hacked.

The agencies said the FBI continues to investigate.

“Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign influence or interference is our priority,” the agencies said. “As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible. We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns.”

Iran’s U.N. mission to the U.S. denied it has tried to interfere in the election.

“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,” the mission said in a statement. “As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly.”

Three American news outlets — Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post — said this month they had received documents that appeared to have been stolen from the Trump campaign. A spokesperson for the campaign claimed the documents were part of an Iranian “hack-and-leak” operation to hurt Trump’s election chances. Last week, the FBI announced it was investigating attempts to hack both parties. 

On Wednesday, Google published a detailed report on an Iranian hacker group, saying it targeted both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns in May and June. 

The U.S. previously blamed Iran for the largest election influence operation ahead of 2020, a convoluted operation to send harassing emails to Democrats in Florida to make it seem as if they were being threatened by the Proud Boys, a far-right group that supports Trump.