DOJ Charges Iranians Over Hack of Presidential Campaign

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Prosecutors say cyber actors employed by Iranian government officials targeted a range of current and former U.S. officials.

U.S. prosecutors have charged three Iranians for allegedly being behind the hack of a presidential campaign.

Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi helped hack a 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, according to court documents filed in Washington, unsealed on Sept. 27, and obtained by The Epoch Times.

The campaign is not identified in the documents. U.S. intelligence officials recently said the Iranian regime was responsible for the hack of the Trump campaign and distribution of files acquired through the hacking, although they also said that the Iranians have “sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.”

The scheme started around January 2020 and initially targeted both former and current U.S. officials before turning to a presidential campaign in or around May 2024, prosecutors say.

The Iranians and those working with them gained access to accounts belonging to people affiliated with the campaign and used their access “to steal, among other information, non-public campaign documents and emails,” according to an indictment.

Jalili, Aghamiri, and Balaghi have been charged with conspiracy to obtain information from a protected computer, wire fraud, and other counts.

They do not have a lawyer listed on the court docket.

The scheme was expanded in June 2024 to an operation seeking to distribute the stolen campaign material by leaking it to reporters and another presidential campaign, prosecutors say.

The FBI has said Iranian hackers sent stolen information to President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. It’s not clear whether the campaign received the information. A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the Democrat presidential nominee, said the Harris campaign is not aware of material being sent directly to the campaign but that a few individuals received what appeared to be spam on their personal emails.

This is a breaking story that will be updated.