Donald Trump’s campaign said its internal communications had been hacked and accused the Iranian government of attempting to “interfere with the 2024 election”.
Vetting files relating to JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, and Florida senator Marco Rubio, who was also under consideration to be the Republican vice presidential candidate, were accessed by the hackers.
The website Politico revealed it began receiving emails in July from an anonymous source offering authentic documents from inside Trump’s operation.
They included the vice presidential candidates’ vetting files which listed Mr Vance’s “potential vulnerabilities” as a running mate.
While the scope of the information obtained in the hack is unclear, it represents a major security breach for the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.
‘These documents were obtained illegally’
Trump’s campaign confirmed it had been hacked in a statement on Saturday afternoon. “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,” said its spokesman, Steven Cheung.
Mr Cheung cited a report Microsoft released on Friday which said that hackers backed by Tehran had attempted to break into the account of a “high-ranking official” on a US presidential campaign in June.
The hackers had taken over an account belonging to a former political adviser and then used it to target the official, the report said. That report did not provide further details on the targets’ identities.
Mr Cheung noted the hackers’ timing “coincides with the close timing” of Trump’s selection of Mr Vance as his running mate but declined to elaborate on the breach.
Mr Vance, a 40-year-old first-term senator for Ohio, had previously been fiercely critical of Trump, reportedly calling him “America’s Hitler” and comparing him to “cultural heroin”.