Iranians sent “unsolicited emails” containing stolen material that was not publicly available from former President Donald Trump’s campaign to people associated with his Democratic political rival, the FBI and two other government agencies said Wednesday.
The FBI and officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said there was “no information at this time” indicating that recipients affiliated with President Joe Biden’s campaign responded to the emails. The administration officials condemned the emails as part of an effort “to sow division and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”
The agencies confirmed last month that Iran was behind efforts to compromise both parties’ presidential campaigns this year, after Trump’s campaign accused Iran of a hacking attempt in June.
According to Wednesday’s statement, Iranian hackers have been attempting to transfer non-publicly stolen material related to Trump’s campaign to media organizations since late June, and the FBI was said to be monitoring the activity.
The agencies also warned of increasing foreign attempts to interfere in the U.S. election in the run-up to November, particularly from Russia, Iran and China. These are countries that “in one way or another seek to exacerbate divisions in American society for their own gain and see election periods as moments of vulnerability.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Wednesday that Iranians wanted to help Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, “because they know President Trump will reinstate tough sanctions and stand up to their reign of terror.”
In an all-caps Truth Social post Wednesday night, Trump alleged that Harris and her campaign were “illegally spying on me. To be known as the Iran, Iran, Iran thing!”
Morgan Finkelstein, a spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, said the campaign has been cooperating with law enforcement since learning of the hacking attempt.
““We are not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign. A few individuals were contacted via their personal emails with what appeared to be spam or a phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said in a statement.
Three federal law enforcement sources confirmed the accuracy of the Harris campaign’s statement to NBC News, saying law enforcement agencies had traced the stolen information from the Trump campaign and determined that several people linked to the Biden campaign had received emails with the information. The recipients never responded to the emails and may not have even opened them because they appeared to be phishing attempts, the sources added.
According to the sources, law enforcement reached out to those people and the Biden campaign to alert them to the emails. The recipients did not contact law enforcement to alert them to what they had, but sources said that is not an indication of cover-up or wrongdoing and that the operatives most likely did not realize what was in the emails.
Google’s Threat Analysis Group, which monitors government-sponsored cyberattacks, said in a report last month that an Iranian hacking group linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked both the Trump and Biden-Harris campaigns in a phishing operation in May and June.
NBC News reported this month that the Justice Department is planning to file criminal charges in connection with the hacking of Trump’s campaign, according to two law enforcement officials. A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations has denied the country’s role in the operation.
The Justice Department accused Iranians of election interference during the last presidential election. In 2021, the Justice Department charged two Iranians with a “cyber-enabled” campaign to intimidate and influence American voters during the 2020 presidential election.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
