Iran attempted to pass hacked Trump campaign info to Biden campaign

The FBI and other intelligence agencies revealed Wednesday that Iran sent information stolen during its hack on the Trump campaign to the Biden campaign and continues to send material to various media outlets.

“Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” the agency wrote in a joint statement alongside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“There is currently no information indicating those recipients replied.”

The alert also said that Iran has “continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations.” 

The statement does not indicate whether any of that information has surfaced publicly, but called the episode “the latest example of Iran’s multi-pronged approach…to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”

A spokesperson for the government of Iran did not immediately respond to request for comment but the country has denied being involved in hacking the campaign.

The Trump campaign was hacked earlier this summer, but the issue did not become public until August, when the Trump team was contacted by reporters who had been approached by a man claiming to be named Robert who said he had internal campaign documents.

Trump ally Roger Stone was among the Iranian hacking targets, as was Trump campaign advisor Susie Wiles, according to reporting from The Washington Post.

The FBI has indicated that Iran similarly had attempted to hack the then-Biden-Harris campaign, but were unsuccessful in doing so.

In a recent call with reporters, ODNI said intelligence indicates Iran has accelerated its efforts to influence the U.S. election, both funneling disinformation into social media and seeking to further divide Americans.

Their efforts come alongside campaigns of increasing intensity from both Russia and China.

The U.S. in recent weeks has taken action against various Russian influence tactics, seizing 32 web domains it was using to spread disinformation and indicting two employees of RT, formerly Russia Today, who worked with Tenet Media to contact various social media influence to push narratives supported by Russia.

Both the Post and NBC have reported that the U.S. in coming days plans to file charges in relation to Iranian hacking.

— Updated at 6:23 p.m.