Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has claimed it was hacked by Iran in June.
This was close to the time when the Republican presidential candidate was selecting his vice president pick for the upcoming US election.
News website Politico said it had received emails in July from an anonymous source offering authentic documents from inside Mr Trump’s operation, including a report about running mate JD Vance’s “potential vulnerabilities”.
“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,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said.
Mr Trump – who had a fraught relationship with Iran during his presidency between 2016 and 2020 – posted on his Truth Social app that Microsoft had informed his campaign that Iran had hacked one of its websites.
He added that they were “only able to get publicly available information”.
He didn’t give any more details on the suspected hack, but Mr Cheung told Sky News’ US partner network NBC that the campaign had been hacked by an Iranian group in June “which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee”.
Sky News has not independently verified the identity of the alleged hackers or their motivation.
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The Trump campaign referred to a report from Microsoft researchers that said Iranian government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a “high-ranking official” on a US presidential campaign in June.
The hackers had taken over an account belonging to a former political adviser and then used it to target the official, the report said.
That report did not provide further details on the targets’ identities.
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A Microsoft spokesperson declined to name the targeted officials or provide additional details after the report was published, according to Reuters news agency.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York rejected the hacking accusations and said “the Iranian government neither possesses nor harbours any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election”.
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Under Mr Trump, the US killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from a multilateral Iran nuclear deal, causing a strain in relations between Washington and Tehran.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House,” Mr Cheung said.
It comes as a new poll suggests Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is ahead of Mr Trump in the three key battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Ms Harris was projected to beat Trump 50% to 46% among likely voters in all three states, the poll by New York Times/Siena College found.