By Kanishka Singh and Nathan Lane
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign said on Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without offering direct evidence.
The campaign’s statement came after Politico said it began receiving emails from an anonymous account containing documents from inside the Trump operation.
“These documents were illegally obtained from foreign sources hostile to the United States, with the intent of interfering in the 2024 election and sowing chaos throughout our democratic process,” Trump campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung said in a statement.
The Trump campaign pointed to a report Friday from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) researchers that said hackers linked to the Iranian government tried to breach the account of a “high-level official” in the U.S. presidential campaign in June. The report did not provide further details on the identity of the official.
“The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just as he did in his first four years in the White House,” Cheung added.
Relations between the former president and Iran were tense while he was in office. Under Trump, the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020 and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump survived an assassination attempt in July. While there has been no suggestion that the suspect was linked to Iran, CNN reported last month that the United States had intelligence of an Iranian plot against Trump. Iran has denied such allegations.