U.S. authorities have charged three Iranians—Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi—with hacking Donald Trump’s presidential campaign this year. Prosecutors allege that these individuals, who are part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, engaged in a “hack and leak” operation to deliberately undermine an unnamed presidential campaign.
Last week, U.S. officials reported that Iranian hackers attempted to distribute stolen materials from the Trump campaign to individuals linked to Joe Biden’s re-election efforts. The three are facing 18 counts, which include wire fraud, identity theft, and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, in addition to hacking-related charges.
In August, the Trump campaign announced that its internal communications had been hacked by Iran, a claim that Iranian officials denied at the time. Shortly thereafter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that Iran was indeed responsible for the breach. In a joint statement with other U.S. intelligence agencies, the FBI warned that Iran was trying to “stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions,” noting increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during the current election cycle.
The 37-page indictment details a long-term hacking campaign targeting U.S. government officials, the media, and individuals involved in political campaigns, which reportedly began in 2020. In May 2024, the Department of Justice claims that the accused began targeting “U.S. Presidential campaign 1,” allegedly stealing documents and communications by impersonating U.S. government officials through fraudulent email accounts and phishing tactics. By June, they reportedly sought to weaponize this information, attempting to leak it to the media and individuals associated with “U.S. Presidential campaign 2.”
When questioned at a press conference about whether the Biden campaign ever utilized the hacked materials, Attorney General Merrick Garland stated, “we’ve seen no indication that anyone replied.”
He noted that the FBI received “good cooperation” from both the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign, which was assumed by Vice President Kamala Harris in July. The Harris campaign confirmed its cooperation with law enforcement agencies.
“We’re 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,” said Morgan Finkelstein, the national security spokeswoman for the Harris campaign.
The BBC has reached out to both the Trump campaign and Iran’s mission to the United Nations for comments on the case. According to the indictment, two email accounts linked to a “former, informal political consultant to the Trump campaign” were compromised, along with an unnamed official and an attorney representing the campaign.
“Today, the FBI would like to send a message to the government of Iran – you and your hackers can’t hide behind your keyboards,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in a statement, emphasizing that the charges mark “the culmination of a thorough and long-running FBI investigation.”
Among the documents believed to have been obtained by Iran from the Trump campaign is a dossier of research on vice-presidential nominee JD Vance.
This dossier and other materials were sent to several major U.S. news outlets, but they gained little attention until Thursday, when journalist Ken Klippenstein, formerly of investigative outlet The Intercept, posted the Vance material on his blog.
Klippenstein revealed that someone named ‘Robert’ had offered him the dossier but was quickly banned from X, formerly Twitter. In a statement, the platform indicated that the journalist had violated rules against disclosing personal information.
