First appeared on FOX: House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, is putting the U.S. intelligence community in a bind after Iranian hackers tried to disseminate personal information about former President Donald Trump's campaign.
“Congress is outraged by the Biden-Harris Administration's inaction and refusal to hold Iran accountable for the cyberattacks on the Trump campaign,” Johnson said in the letter to the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
“As you stated, Iran hacked into the Trump campaign and distributed personal information directly to the Biden campaign and to American media outlets that support Kamala Harris, as well as Iran.”
In the letter, he claimed Harris was Iran's “preferred candidate” in the election.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R) has claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris is Iran's “preferred candidate” in his campaign against former President Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
Last week, the three agencies issued an unusual joint statement saying that “Iranian malicious cyber actors” had been sending stolen election materials from the Trump campaign to people connected to President Biden's now-defunct re-election campaign since June. They also sent non-public materials to U.S. media organizations, the agencies said.
But Johnson told directors that “several questions remain unanswered.”
“The American public must be informed of how the cyberattack and information dissemination occurred, a timeline of when the attack occurred and was verified, and specific steps government agencies have taken to prevent future attacks,” Johnson wrote.
He criticized the Biden administration for failing to stop Iran and other hostile foreign powers from meddling in the election, noting that Iran has recently been accused of plotting to assassinate the former president.
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“Congress is outraged by the Biden-Harris Administration's inaction and refusal to hold Iran accountable for its cyberattacks on the Trump campaign,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote. (Iranian Leadership Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has neither proposed nor taken any meaningful action to signal to our adversaries that such interference will not be tolerated, nor has it publicly disclosed what steps, if any, it has taken to deter future attacks against Donald Trump or his campaign,” Johnson wrote.
“With less than 45 days until the election, we need to do more to protect our nation's sovereignty and prevent Iran from swaying the election results in favor of its favored candidate.”
He gave each agency a deadline of October 4, about one month before the election.
Multiple media outlets reported earlier this month that the Department of Justice and the FBI plan to bring criminal charges against those involved in the hacking of the Trump campaign.
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FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in February that foreign adversaries posed a threat to America's “free and fair elections.”
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“The United States has faced threats from malign foreign influence in the past, but in this election we will face more adversaries, they are moving faster and they are leveraging new technologies,” he said at a national security forum.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Harris campaign, the FBI, CISA and the DNI for comment.
