U.S. authorities have charged three Iranian nationals, Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi, with hacking into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign this year. According to prosecutors, the trio are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and their hacking effort was part of a “hack and leak” operation aimed at undermining a U.S. presidential campaign.
The charges against them include 18 counts of wire fraud, identity theft, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and various hacking-related offenses. U.S. officials also stated that these Iranian hackers attempted to distribute stolen campaign materials to individuals associated with Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
In August, the Trump campaign confirmed that it had been targeted by hackers, and shortly thereafter, the FBI confirmed Iranian involvement. The FBI, along with other intelligence agencies, warned that Iran had been increasing its cyber activities to sow discord and erode trust in U.S. democratic institutions.
Among the stolen materials were documents such as a research dossier on vice presidential nominee JD Vance, which were later leaked to journalist Ken Klippenstein. The documents were shared with various media outlets but gained wider attention after Klippenstein published them on his blog. Following this, Klippenstein was banned from X (formerly Twitter) for violating rules on sharing personal information, though the dossier remained accessible on his Substack platform.