Three members of Iran’s military have been charged with hacking into email accounts linked to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, the Justice Department said Friday. The Treasury Department also announced a new set of sanctions against Iranians it says disrupted the 2020 and 2024 elections.
The indictment, approved Thursday by a Washington grand jury and made public Friday, accuses three people — Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi — of running a “sophisticated” operation to obtain and steal confidential presidential campaign materials. to share. with journalists and individuals involved in another presidential campaign. The defendants are charged with 18 crimes, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The indictment names neither the Trump nor Joe Biden campaigns, but Attorney General Merrick Garland said the alleged efforts were against Trump, and references in the indictment clearly indicate that the hackers are accused of stealing at least some of the to focus the fruits of that effort on people. linked to Biden.
A spokesperson for the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, who effectively took over Biden’s bid when he withdrew from the race in July, denounced the Iranian efforts but emphasized that it did not appear to be about the campaign itself.
“We are not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals had their personal emails targeted in what appeared to be a spam or phishing attempt,” spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said. “We condemn in the strongest terms any attempt by foreign actors to interfere in the US elections, including these unwanted and unacceptable malicious activities.”
When asked whether the Democratic campaign relied on information from his Republican rival, a Harris campaign official said: “The materials were not used.”
During a news conference Friday at Justice Department headquarters, Garland reiterated an earlier statement from the intelligence community saying there was no indication that the Biden allies to whom the Trump campaign information was sent responded to the message.
However, he demurred when asked by POLITICO whether Biden campaign officials used the material.
“I can only respond to what is in the indictment, to what the intelligence community has said. In light of the evidence we have, we see no indication that anyone responded,” Garland said. He did say that the FBI “had good cooperation” from both the Trump campaign and the Biden, now Harris, campaign.
The Trump campaign confirmed last month that it had been hacked after POLITICO and other news organizations received internal campaign documents from an anonymous email address, including what appeared to be investigations into possible political liabilities of Senator J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate.
The indictment details a successful effort by the three Iranian operatives to gain access to the email accounts of figures linked to Trump’s 2024 campaign. That effort built on several years of attempts to target other figures in the U.S. government , politics and media at risk. And the hackers are said to have used email accounts they had compromised to target future victims with ‘spear phishing’ emails.
Prosecutors say Iranian agents obtained debate preparation materials, as well as opposition research packages on Trump’s possible vice presidential choices. The indictment contains the text of an email that the Iranians allegedly sent to Biden allies, offering access to Trump’s preparation for the June 2024 debate.
“I am going to pass on to you some material that would be useful in defeating him,” the Iranians wrote, about Trump and using a false persona, according to the indictment.
The email contained material that the Iranians described as Trump’s “final preparation” for the debate. Recognizing the stakes for Biden, they said a loss in the debate would force Democrats to replace him on the ticket.
“Defendants’ own words make it clear that they attempted to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” Garland said. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by Iran or any foreign power to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”
The first defendant, Jalili, described himself as ‘Master of Information Technology’. He and his co-defendants are alleged to have hacked into the email accounts of a former State Department official who helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, which normalized some Arab countries’ relations with Israel. They also compromised the email accounts of a US-based author; a journalist based at a think tank in Washington, DC; a former presidential adviser on homeland security; two former CIA officials; a former US ambassador to Israel; and co-founder of an Iranian human rights group. No one is named in the indictment.
The hackers then targeted people involved in a presidential campaign from May 2024 through this month, successfully stealing the email accounts of an informal advisor to the candidate, two campaign officials, and a lawyer representing the candidate represented, endangered – known as Trump.
The indictment indicates that the hackers intended to use the information obtained from the computer intrusions to support their “ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani,” an Iranian general who was killed in a US drone strike in January 2020 .
They also aimed to undermine the Trump campaign by leaking material stolen from the campaign, the indictment said.
And they used social engineering tactics to gain the victims’ trust, pretending to be people they knew. For example, in April 2020, they created an email account that they claimed belonged to the wife of a Supreme Court judge.
They also had “long-term, persistent” access to some of the hacked accounts.
After POLITICO reported on some aspects of the hack last month, Trump’s presidential campaign blamed Tehran. And an Aug. 8 Microsoft report found that Iranian hackers “sent a spearphishing email to a senior official during a presidential campaign in June.”
US security agencies released an unusual statement earlier this month saying Iranians were sending materials stolen from the former president’s campaign to people linked to Biden’s reelection team. The statement said there was no sign the recipients had responded.
Harris’ presidential campaign has said its officials did not use information allegedly sent to its allies by the Iranian hackers. It is unclear whether Biden aides were aware of the effort before the FBI notified them.
Google’s cybersecurity division has said Iranians have also tried to hack into Biden’s campaign, but there is no evidence those efforts were successful.
There appears to be little prospect that the suspects, who appear to live in Iran, will be taken into US custody anytime soon, if ever. Asked Friday if there is any frustration that the suspects are currently out of reach of U.S. authorities, Garland said: “From the Department of Justice’s point of view, that is, the point of view of law enforcement, we will follow people for the rest of their lives. ”
Justice Department officials have defended so-called name-and-sham cases as worthwhile because they make it harder for alleged perpetrators to travel freely, publicly putting foreign governments on notice that the U.S. objects against their actions, and encourage Americans who are ready to mete out their punishment. votes to be vigilant about potential disinformation and polarizing political content that U.S. officials say is intended to destabilize the U.S. political system.
The Treasury Department also announced Friday that it is imposing sanctions on one of the alleged Iranian hackers. The department said Jalili was responsible for “malicious cyber operations targeting a former US government official in 2022.”
In addition, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six employees and executives of an Iranian cybersecurity company that it said tried to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.
The company, Emennet Pasargad, was previously sanctioned over allegations that it orchestrated an online operation to influence American voters in 2020. The Treasury Department said the company also tried to obtain U.S. voter information from state election websites and spread disinformation “related to the election and election campaigns.” security.”
“The U.S. government continues to closely monitor efforts by malicious actors to influence or interfere with the integrity of our elections,” Bradley Smith, the Treasury Department’s acting undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement. “The Treasury Department, as part of a whole-of-government effort using all available tools and authorities, remains strongly committed to holding accountable those who seek to undermine our institutions.”
