The U.S. Justice Department has pressed charges in Washington against three Iranian operatives for hacking Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in an effort to undermine the former president’s bid for the presidency, U.S. media reported on Friday.
In a news conference announcing the indictment, Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland said, “The defendants’ own words made clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. We know that Iran is continuing with its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process and advance its malign activities.”
The Treasury Department slapped sanctions on the three accused, who are not in custody, and the State Department offered rewards of up to $10 million for information that could lead to their apprehension.
The three defendants—named Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi—were employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Politico reported that the accused are charged with 18 criminal counts, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and providing material to the IRGC.
Their cyber operations targeted the email accounts of a string of senior officials, including a former ambassador to Israel, a former CIA deputy director, officials at the State and Defense Departments, a former U.S. homeland security adviser and journalists, the Times reported.
The defendants were reportedly able to hack into email accounts of Trump’s campaign officials and other Trump allies. They then leaked the stolen material to media organizations and individuals affiliated with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
This latest indictment joins a series of reports suggesting that Iran is attempting to sabotage Trump’s bid for the presidency. Last week, U.S. intelligence officials informed the former president about “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States.”
The “continued and coordinated attacks have heightened in the past few months,” according to intelligence officials, and “law-enforcement officials across all agencies are working to ensure President Trump is protected and the election is free from interference,” stated Steven Cheung, communications director for the Republican nominee’s campaign.
In August, Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform: “We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government—Never a nice thing to do!”
According to the former president, the hackers only managed to download “publicly available information” from the site. Trump added, “Iran and others will stop at nothing, because our Government is Weak and Ineffective, but it won’t be for long.”