WASHINGTON, Aug 10 - Donald #Trump's U.S. presidential campaign said on Saturday some of its internal communications were hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without providing direct evidence.
The Republican's campaign statement came shortly after news website Politico reported it had begun receiving emails in July from an anonymous source offering authentic documents from inside 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 spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Late on Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth Social app that Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab had just informed the campaign that Iran had hacked one of its websites. He cast blame on #Iran , adding they were "only able to get publicly available information." He did not elaborate further on the hack.
Reuters has not independently verified the identity of the alleged hackers or their motivation.
The Trump campaign referred to a Friday report from Microsoft researchers that said Iranian government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a "high-ranking official" on a U.S. presidential campaign in June. The hackers had taken over an account belonging to a former political advisor and then used it to target the official, the report said. That report did not provide further details on the targets' identities.
A Microsoft spokesperson declined to name the targeted officials or provide additional details after the report was published.
Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York said in an email that "the Iranian government neither possesses nor harbors any intent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election."
"We do not accord any credence to such reports," it added in response to the Trump campaign's allegations.
On Friday, in response to Microsoft's findings, Iran's U.N. mission told its cyber capabilities were "defensive and proportionate to the threats it faces," and that it had no plans to launch cyberattacks.
The former president had tense relations with Iran while in office. Under Trump, the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from a multilateral Iran nuclear deal.
