Donald Trump’s presidential campaign said on Saturday it had been hacked.
Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement about the alleged hack, following reports from Politico that it had begun receiving emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the campaign.
“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 in a statement reported by Reuters.
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.”
He added: “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.”
The campaign cited a Microsoft report released on Friday about alleged hackers with ties to the Iranian government who “sent a spear-phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser”.
Microsoft did not disclose details on the official or senior adviser’s identities, or the hack’s origin.
Trump’s campaign has not provided direct evidence of the alleged hack and the Guardian has contacted Trump’s campaign and Microsoft for comment.
Following the assassination attempt on Trump last month, reports emerged that a threat from Iran prompted the Secret Service to increase protection around him prior to his assassination attempt, though it appears unrelated to the rally attack in Butler county, Pennsylvania.
Earlier this week, the US justice department announced that a Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran had been charged over a foiled conspiracy to carry out political assassinations on American soil.
According to a criminal complaint, 46-year old Asif Merchant tried to recruit people in the US to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US’s 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander.
FBI investigators believe that Trump, who approved the drone strike on Soleimani, was one of the intended targets, according to a US official, CNN reported at the time.
