Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said Saturday that it was hacked by an Iranian group in June, “which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, told NBC News.
The hack was first reported by Politico, and NBC News has not independently verified that the hack occurred or where it came from. Politico said it began receiving emails in July from an anonymous account sharing internal Trump campaign documents.
The documents include investigative reports on at least two of Trump’s vice presidential candidates, including the eventual Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio.
“These documents were illegally obtained from foreign sources hostile to the United States, with the aim of influencing the 2024 elections and sowing chaos in our democratic process,” Cheung told NBC News.
Cheung pointed to a Microsoft report released Friday that said an “Iranian group, this time affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, sent a spearfishing email in June to a senior official campaigning for president.”
Microsoft did not specify which campaign was targeted. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to share details about the incident beyond what was in its Friday report.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror, just as he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news organization that reprints documents or internal communications is doing what America’s enemies want and doing exactly what they want,” Cheung added.
The FBI said it was “aware of the media reports” but declined to comment further.
A representative of Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In their story, Politico wrote that the news organization asked the anonymous emailer where they got the documents they leaked and received a response that read: “I advise you not to be curious about where I got them. Any answer to this question will compromise me and also legally prohibit you from publishing them.”
Representatives for Politico did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
