US President Donald Trump speaks during the unveiling of the Kennedy Center Honors nominees on August 13, 2025, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Wednesday shrugged off a question about a new report that Russia is at least partially responsible for hacking the electronic system that manages U.S. federal court case documents.
“Are you surprised?” Trump said during a press event at The Kennedy Center.
“They hack in, that’s what they do,” he said about Russia.
“They’re good at it, we’re good at it, we’re actually better at it.”
Revelations of the breach came days before Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Trump said that he “could” bring up the hack during the meeting.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that evidence shows that an entity in Russia appeared to have hacked the court case document system and “recently compromised sealed records.”
That system, in addition to containing publicly available court documents, also has hidden records, including information on individuals charged with national security crimes.
“Some of the searches included midlevel criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames,” the Times reported.
The hack is believed to be part of a years-long effort, the Times reported.
The U.S. Courts system last week announced that it “is taking additional steps to strengthen protections for sensitive case documents in response to recent escalated cyberattacks of a sophisticated and persistent nature on its case management system.”
“The Judiciary is also further enhancing security of the system and to block future attacks, and it is prioritizing working with courts to mitigate the impact on litigants,” the system said.
An internal memo to Justice Department officials and staffers from the court system, which the Times reviewed, warned that “persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors have recently compromised sealed records.”
“This remains an URGENT MATTER that requires immediate action,” the memo said.
