The FBI confirmed on Monday that it was investigating a complaint from Donald Trump's presidential campaign that Iran had hacked and distributed a trove of sensitive campaign documents.
A number of media outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times and Politico, reported receiving internal campaign documents or emails, including a 271-page dossier about JD Vance, the Republican Ohio senator who is Trump's running mate.
Trump blamed the theft on the Iranian government in a post to his Truth Social network, claiming his campaign had been informed by Microsoft that the hack had taken place.
On Saturday, the FBI said it was aware of the alleged theft, according to the Post, and took the unusual further step on Monday afternoon of saying it was looking into it. "We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter," the bureau's brief statement said.
The hacking scandal, which evoked allegations of previous overseas interference in US elections, came to light on Thursday when Microsoft shared "intelligence" it said "increasingly points to Iran's intent to influence this year's presidential election".
Politico reported it had received some internal campaign documents from an anonymous account inside the Trump operation using an AOL email address and using the name "Robert". The package sent to several recipients included a dossier dated 23 February that appeared to be research into Vance as Trump was pondering his vice-presidential pick.
Also on Saturday, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that Iranian hackers had broken into the account of a "high ranking official" within the campaign in June, noting the coincidental timing to the former president's announcement.
"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," he said.
Trump's Saturday evening post said nothing confidential had been taken, but the theft was egregious. "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," he wrote.
The hack of the Trump campaign will serve as a warning that the last three months of the 2024 presidential election could be as bumpy as the previous two.
In 2016 the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, was hacked, allegedly by Russian agents, and hundreds of emails were published by WikiLeaks. Twelve Russian military intelligence officers were later indicted for their alleged roles in interfering in the election.
In 2020, the contents of a laptop later confirmed as belonging to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, were released and became subject of a controversy, not only for its salacious leaked content but for a letter signed by former intelligence officials claiming that the leak had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
On Monday, two Democratic lawmakers with experience on intelligence and security committees called for information about the latest breach to be released publicly.
The Democratic California congressman Eric Swalwell posted on social media that he was seeking a briefing on the breach, and that while he considered Trump "the most despicable person ever to seek office" - someone who had also called for hacking in the past - "that doesn't mean America ever tolerates foreign interference".
Adam Schiff, another Democratic California congressman, urged Department of Homeland Security officials to declassify information on the foreign nature of the hack.
Schiff said the US intelligence community "moved much too slow to properly identify the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia" in 2016 and "should act quickly here".
He also said that in that year, "the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference, took advantage of it and then sought to deny it, much to the detriment of the country".
On Saturday, a spokesman for the national security council said the Biden administration "strongly condemns any foreign government or entity who attempts to interfere in our electoral process or seeks to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions".
