Iran emerges as the most aggressive foreign threat to US election

WASHINGTON—In July, U.S. intelligence officials gave a rare briefing to media reporters on foreign threats to the election and warned, as they have in previous cycles, that Russia was the “pre-eminent threat" to the November vote.

Iran, the officials said, posed a lesser threat, aiming to be a chaos agent in the election by exacerbating social tensions.

Just weeks later, however, intelligence officials organized another briefing and delivered a different message. Their assessment on Iran had changed: Tehran wasn’t just hoping to spread chaos, they said, but aiming to harm Donald Trump’s candidacy, as it haphazardly sought to do four years ago. Iran was also attempting to directly engage Americans in its influence operations and even provide funding to support Gaza protests on college campuses, officials said, while relying on “vast webs of online personas and propaganda mills to spread disinformation."

Now, the threat posed by Tehran appears even more severe, though lacking in much sophistication. On Saturday, the Trump campaign said it had been hacked by “foreign sources hostile to the United States" in a breach the campaign linked to Iran. An anonymous source that called itself “Robert" had shared apparently stolen internal Trump campaign files with reporters at several media organizations, hoping to see the material published.

The White House was unaware of the hack-and-leak campaign, first learning of it from Politico’s Saturday report which detailed the breach, two administration officials said. The Biden administration still hasn’t made a formal determination of responsibility. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has only confirmed it is aware of public reports but has declined to comment further. The White House