WASHINGTON (AP) — Iranian hackers sought to entice President Joe Biden's campaign with information stolen from rival Donald Trump's campaign and interfere in the 2024 presidential election by sending unsolicited emails to people with ties to the Democratic president, the FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday.
Officials said there was no evidence the recipients responded, preventing the hacked information from surfacing in the final months of a closely fought election.
The hackers sent emails between late June and early July to people involved in Biden's campaign before he withdrew from the White House. The emails “contained excerpts of non-public materials stolen from the campaign of former President Trump,” according to a government statement.
The announcement marks the latest effort by what they say is Iran continuing to embolden itself to interfere in the 2024 elections. Includes hacking and leaking campaigns The FBI and other federal agencies last month cited the case as having ties to Tehran, and the Justice Department is preparing to file charges in the case, according to the Associated Press.
The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have alleged that the hack of the Trump campaign and the attempted intrusion into the Biden-Harris campaign were part of an attempt to undermine voter confidence in the election and sow discord.
of The Trump campaign will make an announcement on August 10th. The paper reported that Iranian officials had stolen and distributed classified internal documents after the hack. At least three news organizations, Politico, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, have leaked classified documents from within the Trump campaign. So far, the organizations have refused to disclose details of the documents they received.
Politico reported that starting on July 22, the group began receiving emails from an anonymous account, an AOL email account identified only as “Robert,” which handed over what appeared to be dossier material supposedly conducted by the campaign about the Ohio senator and Republican vice presidential nominee. J.D. VanceThe document was dated February 23, about five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.
Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesman for the Kamala Harris campaign, said in a statement that the campaign has been cooperating with law enforcement since learning that Biden campaign members were among the recipients of the emails.
“We are not aware of any materials sent directly to the campaign. Several individuals were targeted with emails that appeared to be spam and phishing attempts,” Finkelstein said.
