Donald Trump’s campaign says its emails were hacked

Trump campaign claims Iranian actors hacked campaign, distributing sensitive documents; Microsoft report details foreign interference in 2024 U.S. election.

Former President Donald Trump's presidential campaign said on Saturday (August 10, 2024) that it had been hacked and suggested Iranian actors were involved in stealing and distributing sensitive internal documents.

The campaign provided no specific evidence of Iran's involvement, but the claim comes a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing foreign agents' attempts to interfere in the U.S. campaign in 2024.

It cited an instance of an Iranian military intelligence unit in June sending “a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blamed the hack on “foreign sources hostile to the United States.” The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday by AP.

Politico first reported Saturday on the hack. The outlet reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be a research dossier the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.

“These documents were obtained illegally” and “intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Mr. Cheung said.

He pointed to the Microsoft report issued Friday and its conclusions 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.”