WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� Iranian hackers sought to interest President Joe Biden's campaign in information stolen from rival Donald Trump's campaign, sending unsolicited emails to people connected to the Democratic president in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election, the FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday.
There's no evidence that any of the recipients responded, officials said, preventing the hacked information from surfacing in the final months of the closely contested election.
The hackers sent emails in late June and early July to people who were associated with Biden's campaign before he dropped out. The emails 鈥渃ontained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump鈥檚 campaign as text in the emails,鈥� according to a U.S. government statement.
The announcement is the latest effort to call out what officials say is Iran鈥檚 brazen, ongoing work to interfere in the 2024 election, that the FBI and other federal agencies linked last month to Tehran. The Justice Department has been preparing charges in that breach, The Associated Press has reported.
The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have said the Trump campaign hack and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign are part of an effort to undermine voters鈥� faith in the election and to stoke discord.
The that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets 鈥� Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post 鈥� were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what it received.
Politico reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source 鈥� an AOL email account identified only as 鈥淩obert鈥� 鈥� passed along what appeared to be a research dossier that the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. . The document was dated Feb. 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.
In a statement, Morgan Finkelstein, a spokesperson for Kamala Harris鈥檚 campaign, said the campaign has cooperated with law enforcement since learning that people associated with Biden鈥檚 team were among the recipients of the emails.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,鈥� Finkelstein said.
Eric Tucker And David Klepper, The Associated Press
