POLITICO reports on Saturday, August 10 that it began receiving emails looking like hacked documents from the Donald Trump campaign back in July.
We received internal Trump documents from “Robert”. The campaign just confirmed it was hacked.https://t.co/zim5C7IeCi
— POLITICO (@politico) August 10, 2024
Alex Isenstadt reports:
On July 22, POLITICO began receiving emails from an anonymous account. Over the course of the past few weeks, the person — who used an AOL email account and identified themselves only as “Robert” — relayed what appeared to be internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official. A research dossier the campaign had apparently done on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, which was dated Feb. 23, was included in the documents. The documents are authentic, according to two people familiar with them and granted anonymity to describe internal communications. One of the people described the dossier as a preliminary version of Vance’s vetting file.
The research dossier was a 271-page document based on publicly available information about Vance’s past record and statements, with some — such as his past criticisms of Trump — identified in the document as “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” The person also sent part of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also a finalist for the vice presidential nomination.
BuzzFeed would have just published the dossier.
The campaign blamed “foreign sources hostile to the United States,” citing a Microsoft report on Friday that Iranian hackers “sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign,” Isenstadt reports.
“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,” [Trump campaign spokesperson Steven] Cheung said. “On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the U.S. presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice presidential nominee.”
The Trump campaign blames Iran.
If Iran is desperately trying to keep Trump from being elected I feel like it's a pretty good indication we shouldn't be voting for Kamala
— Benderama (@MockYuah) August 10, 2024
Which branch of our government does Robert work for?
— Rural Revolution (@pilgrimboy14) August 10, 2024
Then do the right thing and don’t publish them or give them to Democrats. You’re corrupt just like the intel community and Iran.
— Joanne_Lopez_Dow🇺🇸 (@dow_lopez) August 10, 2024
So Iran is interfering in the 2024 election to benefit @KamalaHarris. Very telling.
— Gritty51 (@Gritty522) August 10, 2024
You mean the DNC renewed their 2015/2016 FISA warrants since no one got arrested last time and are now using plausible deniability claims to detract from the most obvious source.
— M M (@Michal_Mac) August 10, 2024
So y’all are the ones working with the Iranians to interfere in our election? Or is it the CIA? 🙄
— B (@bt250x) August 10, 2024
"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere" with an election.
— Kimberly (@Heart10Looks3) August 10, 2024
Oh, suddenly we give a flip about where the stolen documents come from before publishing them?
And sat on them for weeks.
— Leah ליאה (@gusnlea) August 10, 2024
Interesting, that.
Its very likely that the person's actual name is not Robert.
— Sai (@Saiarav) August 10, 2024
Why have you sat on them for 3 weeks? Explain.
— Ben Albert (@BAlbertBen) August 10, 2024
That's our question.
The Kamala Harris supporters in the replies are suggesting the Trump campaign hacked itself 1) to get sympathy, since everyone's paying attention to Harris now, or 2) as a reason to dump Vance from the ticket.
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