FBI says Iranian hackers sent stolen Trump data to Biden campaign
Hackers from Iran sent emails to Joe Biden’s aides that contained stolen material from Donald Trump’s campaign, the FBI has said.
Officials believe that information taken from the former president’s team was sent in unsolicited messages to people linked to Mr Biden’s re-election campaign in June and July.
Mr Biden and his team did not respond to the emails and there is no evidence that they saw any of the information.
A number of American media organisations, including Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post were approached during the summer with leaked stolen information but said they also did not respond.
“Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to US media organisations,” the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement on Wednesday.
Iran has denied interfering in American elections but in August officials warned that Tehran was trying to whip up discord ahead of the presidential vote on November 5.
The agencies did not provide details on the nature of the stolen material.
The FBI told Trump aides within the last 48 hours that information hacked by Iran had been sent to the Biden campaign, a senior campaign official told AP.
Intelligence officials believe that Tehran views a Trump presidency as more threatening to Iran than a Harris-led White House.
In a statement, the Trump campaign said Kamala Harris and Mr Biden should disclose whether they used the hacked material “to hurt” President Trump.
Mr Biden dropped out of the race for the White House on July 21 and was subsequently replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate.
The Harris campaign called the emails from Iran “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity” that were received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts.
“We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign,” a spokesperson added.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Officials have in recent months used criminal charges and sanctions against foreign adversaries who are trying to influence November’s election, including an indictment targeting a covert Russian effort to spread pro-Kremlin content to US audiences.
