The Justice Department plans to file criminal charges in the hacking of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, two law enforcement officials told NBC News.
The Trump campaign announced in August that it had been hacked. Later that month, federal officials said Iran was behind the effort, which was part of an apparent hacking and leaking operation to distribute files stolen from the Trump campaign.
So far, the information obtained by hackers and distributed to media organizations has not been widely disseminated. At least three American media outlets and one independent journalist have received hacked files from someone using the name “Robert” and emailed from America Online (AOL), but have not published the files.
A spokesman for Iran’s United Nations mission did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, but previously denied that Iran was behind the hacking operation.
The Washington Post first reported on the pending charges. The details of the charges and who they will be brought against are unknown at this time.
In recent days, NBC News has emailed one of the addresses used by “Robert,” which did not respond to a question about whether there are other plans to release the Trump documents or the full extent of the stolen files. Emails to the account returned on Friday indicating the account had been deleted.
Federal officials reiterated in a press conference last week that the U.S. intelligence community believes Iran wants to damage former President Trump’s campaign, while Russia wants to boost Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris. The Ministry of Justice accused the employees of the Russian-backed media network RT of illegally financing conservative influencers.
Cybersecurity experts have long warned that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is conducting a highly skilled and persistent email phishing operation, usually aimed at gathering information from Tehran.
Microsoft and Google both said earlier this year that they had detected IRGC hackers trying to hack presidential campaigns. Google was more specific, saying that hackers had followed both Trump’s campaign and President Joe Biden’s campaign before he dropped out of the race.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, U.S. officials accused Iran of a convoluted scheme to interfere by emailing Florida Democratic emails that appeared to come from the Proud Boys, a pro-Trump militia. The Ministry of Justice accused two Iranians of carrying out the operation in 2021.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
