A prominent American political party is under fire for allegedly receiving “malicious” information from foreign sources and failing to disclose it properly. This time, the accusations are not against the Republicans.
On Wednesday evening, the FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint statement highlighting serious threats to the upcoming November general election.
According to the statement, foreign actors had stolen materials from former President Donald Trump’s campaign — the Republican nominee — and attempted to pass these stolen goods to then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign. (Biden is no longer running for re-election, having been replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris in July.)
“Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” the statement revealed.
It continued: “Furthermore, Iranian malicious cyber actors have continued their efforts since June to send stolen, non-public material associated with former President Trump’s campaign to U.S. media organizations.”
While the statement aimed to minimize the Biden campaign’s responsibility, it also raised questions about their actions. “There is currently no information indicating those recipients replied,” the statement added.
A follow-up report from Politico, while mostly reinforcing the Biden campaign’s innocence, mentioned a crucial detail: the campaign did not inform law enforcement when they received the hacked material.
“President Joe Biden’s campaign did not reach out to law enforcement after individuals associated with the campaign received hacked material from Donald Trump’s campaign in their personal email accounts,” Politico reported.
The report noted that Biden campaign officials didn’t contact authorities because they hadn’t opened the emails. The Harris campaign also didn’t notify authorities but later denied using the materials when contacted by law enforcement.
Notably, the Politico report stated, “The [Harris] campaign did not provide a timeline of events.”
