Federal prosecutors on Friday announced criminal charges against three Iranian nationals in connection with a recent hack of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign and other cyberattacks.
The three “malicious cyber actors,” who were employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, engaged in “a wide-ranging hacking campaign” that also targeted current and former government officials, media figures and non-governmental organizations, according to an indictment filed in Washington, D.C., federal court.
The U.S. designates the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization.
“There are few actors in this world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference Friday.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by Iran, or by any foreign power, to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”
The 37-page, 18-count indictment charges the three men, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar Balaghi, with hacking conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and conspiring to support terrorism.
Their hacking campaign began as early as January 2020, and involved spearphishing and other “social engineering techniques,” the prosecutors alleged.
In May 2024, the Iranians allegedly gained access to the personal accounts of officials on the Trump campaign, which is described in the indictment as “U.S. Presidential Campaign 1.”
The alleged hackers stole emails and other non-public documents, and then tried to leak the materials to the media and campaign officials for President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time.
The hack was a deliberate effort to undermine Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 presidential election, prosecutors alleged.
Garland said Friday that the DOJ has “no evidence” that anyone on the Biden campaign replied when contacted by the alleged hackers. Biden withdrew from the presidential race in mid-July and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, the current Democratic nominee.
The charges come amid heightened scrutiny about how foreign actors, especially Iran, China and Russia, are trying to influence the U.S. presidential race.
U.S. intelligence officials said Monday that those foreign interference efforts include using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation and manipulate public opinion, NBC News reported.
Officials have said that Iran is working to hurt Trump’s campaign, while Russia prefers Trump, who has declined to say he wants Ukraine to win its war against invading Kremlin forces.
China, meanwhile, has pushed anti-democracy influence operations but has not clearly sided with either the Republican or Democratic tickets, officials have said.
“These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens, do not get a say in our country’s democratic process,” Garland said at Friday’s presser.