Three Iranians charged with hacking Donald Trump’s campaign

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US federal prosecutors have alleged that three hackers working for the Iranian government sought to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and sway the 2024 general election.

The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment against three Iranian nationals they said were employed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran’s armed force, which Washington has designated as a terrorist organisation.

“There are few actors in this world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism,” US attorney-general Merrick Garland said on Friday. 

The indictment comes as Washington fends off a series of attempts by foreign adversaries, such as Iran and Russia, to meddle with the 2024 US presidential election, which is just weeks away in November. 

“[W]e are seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity during this election cycle,” Garland said. 

Tehran has sought to sow division in US politics through hacking and influence operations, including sending stolen material from Trump’s campaign to US media outlets and creating covert news sites targeting voters with disinformation. 

Media outlets have refused to publish the hacked material, which allegedly includes an opposition research dossier on JD Vance, now Trump’s vice-presidential candidate. One independent journalist who on Thursday appeared to share one of the unverified documents on X was suspended from the platform. 

The defendants, who reside in Iran, were charged with computer and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation. They are not in custody.

According to the indictment, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yaser Balaghi between 2020 and at least September 2024 deployed a “wide-ranging” hacking scheme that targeted current and former US government officials, journalists, non-governmental organisations and individuals linked to presidential campaigns.

The defendants, who could not be reached for comment, allegedly used emails that impersonated US government officials to launch their campaign. Targets included a former senior CIA official, a homeland security adviser to an ex-US president and a former US ambassador to Israel. 

The indictment does not name specific presidential candidates. Descriptions suggest the trio stole material on debate preparation and potential vice-presidential candidates as well as emails from Trump’s campaign and sought to share them with individuals they thought were associated with US President Joe Biden’s team, before his withdrawal from the presidential race. 

The defendants allegedly emailed some documents to a person linked to Biden’s campaign, saying: “I hate [US Presidential Campaign 1’s candidate, believed to be Trump] and strongly don’t want to see his second term. So I’m going to pass some materials along to you that would be useful to defeat him.” The individual did not reply.

US authorities have indicated that Iran does not want another Trump presidency, as he has vowed to take a tough stance against Tehran and stand in the way of it acquiring a nuclear weapon. The 2020 assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani also remains a hot-button issue. 

Experts fear that new tools, such as generative artificial intelligence, will help fuel disinformation campaigns into the November vote. Russia has also ramped up its influence operations. The DoJ is seizing dozens of websites allegedly used by Moscow to spread disinformation ahead of the general election.