The former American president and current presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has accused Iran of hacking his campaign. Trump’s campaign team released a statement on Saturday evening claiming that the Iranian government stole and distributed sensitive internal documents. This accusation followed a report from Microsoft concerning foreign attempts to influence this year’s American election campaign.
The campaign team referred to the previous tensions between Trump and Iran but did not provide direct evidence to support their claims. “These documents were acquired illegally from foreign sources that are hostile to the U.S., with the intent to interfere in the 2024 election and create chaos in our democratic process,” stated campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
Later on Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth Social app that Microsoft had informed the campaign that Iran had hacked one of their websites, but that they “were only able to access publicly available information.”
A report from Politico, released just before the allegations, mentioned an anonymous source who offered to provide documents from Trump’s operation, including a report on potential vulnerabilities of his vice presidential candidate, JD Vance.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council stated in a release that they take any reports of foreign interference “very seriously” and condemn any entity attempting to undermine American democratic institutions.
Microsoft’s report indicated that “foreign malicious influence regarding the 2024 election began slowly but has gradually gained momentum over the past six months, initially due to Russian operations, but more recently from Iranian activity.”
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York responded via email, stating that “the Iranian government neither possesses nor has any intent or motive to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.” “We do not ascribe any credibility to such reports,” they said in response to Trump’s campaign allegations.
The Iranian UN mission told Reuters that their cyber capabilities are “defensive and proportional to the threats they face,” and that they have no plans to initiate such cyber attacks. The relationship between Trump and Iran has historically been strained. During his presidency, Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani was killed in 2020, and the U.S. withdrew from a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran.
“Iranians know that President Trump will stop their terror regime just as he did in his first four years in the White House,” added Cheung.
The suspect in a July assassination attempt against Trump had no connections to Iran; however, a CNN report last month mentioned that American intelligence had uncovered an Iranian plot against Trump. Iran has denied these allegations. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Pakistani national Asif Merchant, who allegedly had ties to Iran and was reportedly planning assassination attempts against political figures in the U.S., including Trump.