FBI investigates Trump campaign claim it was hacked by Iran

Campaign spokesman says documents 'obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to US' to interfere in election

Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana. AFP

The FBI said on Monday that it is investigating a claim from Donald Trump's presidential campaign that it was the target of a hack orchestrated by Iran.

"We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter," the bureau's press office told The National.

The hack was first reported by Politico, which said it had begun receiving emails in July containing internal Trump campaign documents that included a dossier on Ohio Senator JD Vance, Mr Trump’s vice presidential choice, from an anonymous account.

The contents of the dossier have not been publicly released, but Politico sources said the document contained publicly available information about Mr Vance’s past record and statements.

Mr Trump said late on Saturday that the hack on his presidential campaign gained access to public information only.

“We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian government – never a nice thing to do,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform late on Saturday.

“They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature.

"Iran and others will stop at nothing, because our government is weak and ineffective, but it won’t be for long.”

Microsoft released a report on Friday that indicated hackers with ties to Iran had sent a spear-phishing email in June to an official with a presidential campaign “from the compromised email account of a former senior adviser”.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said that the documents had been “obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States” whose goal was election interference.

“Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America's enemies and doing exactly what they want,” Axios quoted Mr Cheung as saying.

Iran has denied involvement.

“What Iran doesn’t realise is that I will make the world a better and safer place, and that’s good for them, also,” Mr Trump said in his post.

Relations between Iran and the US deteriorated under Mr Trump, who in 2018 withdrew from a 2015 deal that gave sanctions relief to Tehran in return for limits on its nuclear programme.

And in January 2020, the US carried out a strike in Baghdad that killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Qassem Suleimani, who supervised Iran's proxy militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

The FBI is involved in a separate investigation focused on an assassination attempt against Mr Trump last month.

In the weeks leading up to the incident, the US received intelligence of an assassination plot involving Iran.

Tehran has denied these allegations as well, calling them "unsubstantiated and malicious".

No link between the gunman who fired on Mr Trump and Iran has been discovered.