Former President Donald Trump confirmed that internal campaign communications were hacked after outlets began receiving anonymous emails from unverified sources.
According to the Trump campaign, the “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.”
A Microsoft report found that hackers from Iran broke into a “high-ranking official’s” account around the same time Trump announced his vice presidential nominee.
The hack came “after recent reports of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump around the same time as the Butler, PA tragedy,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said. "The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications is doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want."
The hacker's identity has not been verified, and Cheung declined to say whether the campaign has been in contact with Microsoft.
One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file. The research dossier was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, with some — such as his past criticisms of Trump — identified in the document as “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” The person also sent part of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice presidential nomination.
The person said they had a “variety of documents from [Trump’s] legal and court documents to internal campaign discussions.” Asked how they obtained the documents, the person responded: “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.” via Politico