Trump campaign says it was hacked and had documents stolen as leaders point the finger at Iran

Donald Trump’s campaign said on Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked after Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous account that included internal campaign documents.

Citing a Microsoft report published on Friday that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign”, the campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States.”

In the report, Microsoft did not identify the campaign targeted by the email and declined to comment when approached by Politico.

There has been no independent verification of the identity of the hacker by the outlet, nor of their motivation.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung would not say if they were privy to any further information about the culprit being Iran.

“These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our democratic process,” Cheung said.

“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.”

Cheung declined to state if the campaign had been in contact with Microsoft or law enforcement about the hack.

Politico began receiving emails from an anonymous AOL account from a person identifying themself as “Robert” on July 22.

The emails included what appeared to be internal communications from a senior campaign official as well as a research dossier prepared for the campaign on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, dated from February 23.

Two people familiar