Iran Hackers Tried to Give Trump Campaign Info to Biden Team

WASHINGTON — Iranian hackers attempted to entice the presidential campaign with information stolen from the campaign. They sent unsolicited emails to individuals associated with the then-Democratic candidate in an attempt to interfere in the 2024 election, according to the FBI and other federal agencies on Wednesday.

Officials say there’s no indication that any recipients responded. Several media organizations, contacted over the summer with leaked stolen information, have also stated that they did not respond. presidential campaign labeled the emails from Iran “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity,” noting that only a few people received them and considered them to be spam or phishing attempts.

The emails were received before the hack of the Trump campaign was publicly acknowledged, and there’s no evidence that the recipients were aware of their origin.

The announcement is the latest U.S. government effort to expose what officials say is Iran’s ongoing, audacious interference in the election. This includes a hack-and-leak campaign that the FBI and other federal agencies linked to Tehran last month.

In recent months, U.S. officials have used criminal charges, sanctions, and public advisories to detail actions taken by foreign adversaries to influence the election. This includes an indictment targeting a covert Russian effort to spread pro-Russia content to U.S. audiences.

This marks a stark contrast to the government’s response in , when Obama administration officials were criticized for not being upfront about the Russian interference they observed on Trump’s behalf during his campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In this instance, the hackers sent emails in late June and early July to individuals associated with Biden’s campaign before he withdrew his candidacy. The emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” according to a statement released by the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The agencies have stated that the Trump campaign hack and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign are part of an effort to undermine voter confidence in the election and incite discord.

The FBI informed Trump aides within the last 48 hours that information hacked by Iran had been sent to the Biden campaign, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation.

The Trump campaign disclosed on Aug. 10 that it had been hacked and stated that Iranian actors had stolen and disseminated sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets—Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has declined to disclose any details about what it received.

Politico 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 that the campaign had apparently compiled 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.

In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said the campaign has collaborated with law enforcement since learning that individuals associated with Biden’s team were among the recipients of the emails.

“We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said. “We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity.

Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the attempt to dangle stolen information to the Biden campaign “further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election” to assist Harris.

Intelligence officials have stated that Iran opposes Trump’s reelection, believing he is more likely to escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran. Trump’s administration terminated a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions, and ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an action that prompted Iranian leaders to vow revenge.

Iran’s intrusion on the Trump campaign was cited as just one of the cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns identified by tech companies and national security officials at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Executives from Meta, Google, and Microsoft briefed lawmakers on their plans for safeguarding the election and the attacks they’d encountered so far.

“The most perilous time I think will come 48 hours before the election,” Microsoft President Brad Smith told lawmakers during the hearing, which focused on American tech companies’ efforts to safeguard the election from foreign disinformation and cyberattacks.

—Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.