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 associated with the then-Democratic candidate in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election, the FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday.
There's no indication that any of the recipients responded, officials said, and several media organizations approached over the summer with have also said they did not respond. Kamala Harris' presidential campaign called the emails from Iran 鈥渦nwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity鈥 that were received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts.
The emails were received before the hack of the Trump campaign was publicly acknowledged, and there鈥檚 no evidence the recipients of the emails knew their origin.
The announcement is the latest U.S. government effort to call out what officials say is Iran鈥檚 brazen, ongoing work to interfere in the election, that the FBI and other federal agencies linked last month to Tehran.
U.S. officials in recent months have used criminal charges, sanctions and public advisories to detail actions taken by foreign adversaries to influence the election, to spread pro-Russia content to U.S. audiences.
, when Obama administration officials were criticized for not being forthcoming about the Russian interference they were seeing on Trump's behalf as he ran against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In this case, 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 statement released by the FBI, the Office of the Director of 好色tv Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The agencies 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 FBI informed Trump aides within the last 48 hours that information hacked by Iran had been sent to the Biden campaign, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity to speak because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
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, Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein 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. "We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity.
Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the effort to dangle stolen information to the Biden campaign 鈥渇urther proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election鈥 to help Harris.
Intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trump鈥檚 reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trump鈥檚 administration , reimposed sanctions and ordered the , an act that prompted Iran鈥檚 leaders to .
Iran鈥檚 intrusion on the Trump campaign was cited as just one of the cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns identified by tech companies and national security officials at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Executives from Meta, Google and Microsoft briefed lawmakers on their plans for safeguarding the election, and the attacks they鈥檇 seen so far.
鈥淭he most perilous time I think will come 48 hours before the election,鈥 Microsoft President Brad Smith told lawmakers during the hearing, which focused on American tech companies鈥 efforts to safeguard the election from foreign disinformation and cyberattacks.
___
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
