US preparing criminal charges in Iran hack targeting Trump, AP sources say

By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is preparing criminal charges in connection with an Iranian hack that targeted Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in an attempt to influence the outcome of the November election, two people familiar with the matter said Thursday.

It was not yet clear when the charges would be announced or who exactly they would target, but they come as a result of an FBI investigation into a break-in that multiagency investigators quickly linked to an Iranian effort to influence U.S. policy.

The prospect of criminal charges comes as the Justice Department raised alarms about aggressive efforts by countries including Russia and Iran to interfere in the presidential election between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, including through hacking and covert social media campaigns to influence public opinion.

Iran “is making greater efforts to influence this year’s election than in previous election cycles, and that Iranian activity is becoming increasingly aggressive as we approach this election,” Deputy Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said in a speech in New York City on Thursday.

“Iran believes that this year’s elections will have a particularly significant impact on Iran’s national security interests, making Tehran more likely to try to influence the outcome,” he added.

The Trump campaign announced on August 10 that it had been hacked, saying that Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news organizations — Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post — leaked confidential materials from the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to disclose details about what they received.

Politico reported that it began receiving emails from an anonymous account on July 22. The source — an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” — passed along what appeared to be an investigative dossier the campaign had apparently compiled on Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. The document was dated Feb. 23, nearly five months before Trump picked Vance as his running mate.

The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subsequently blamed Iran for the hack and an attempted break-in into the Biden-Harris campaign.

These agencies said in a statement that the hacking and similar activities were intended to sow division, exploit divisions in American society and influence election outcomes.

The statement did not say whether Iran has a preferred candidate, though Tehran has long appeared determined to retaliate for the attack Trump ordered as president in 2020 that killed an Iranian general.

The two people who discussed the threatened criminal charges spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about a case that had not yet been made public.

The Washington Post was first to report that charges were being prepared.

Justice Department officials have worked to publicly expose and counter attempts to meddle in the election. The response is a contrast from 2016, when Obama administration officials were far more cautious about Russian interference they were monitoring that was aimed at bolstering Trump’s campaign.

“We’ve learned that transparency about what we see is critical,” Olsen, the Justice Department official, said Thursday.

“It helps ensure that our citizens are aware of foreign governments’ attempts to sow division and spread lies — all of which builds the resilience of our electorate,” he added. “It alerts our private sector so they can better protect their networks. And it sends an unmistakable message to our adversaries — we have visibility into your networks, we know what you are doing, and we are committed to holding you accountable.”

In an effort to combat disinformation ahead of the election, the Justice Department last week charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-owned media company, with secretly providing nearly $10 million to a Tennessee content creation company to publish English-language videos on social media platforms with messages that allegedly served the interests and agenda of the Russian government.