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In early August, Donald Trump’s campaign made a provocative announcement: An Iranian group successfully hacked the Republicans’ 2024 operation in June. While the former president and his team have earned a reputation for breathtaking dishonesty, these claims were actually true.
In fact, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement in mid-August on Iranian efforts to hack both parties’ presidential campaigns.
While Iranian officials have denied the allegations, new information about the scheme continues to come to light. NBC News reported:
Iranians sent “unsolicited emails” that included stolen material that was not publicly available from former President Donald Trump’s campaign to people associated with his Democratic political rival, the FBI and two other government agencies said Wednesday. The FBI and officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said there was “currently no information” indicating that recipients associated with President Joe Biden’s campaign had responded to the emails.
The basic details of the story, at least at this point, appear rather straightforward: If the allegations are accurate, Iran successfully breached the Trump campaign and obtained private information. Iran then offered stolen materials to Democrats; and Democrats ignored the outreach.
In fact, a Harris campaign spokesperson said in a statement, “We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt.”
NBC News’ report added, “Three federal law enforcement sources confirmed the accuracy of the Harris campaign’s statement to NBC News, saying law enforcement agencies tracked the stolen information from the Trump campaign and determined that several people linked to Biden’s campaign received emails containing the information. The recipients never responded to the emails and may not have even opened them because they appeared to be phishing attempts, the sources added.”
The Republican nominee responded to the news in a decidedly Trumpian way.
“WOW, JUST OUT!” the former president wrote in a hysterical screed, published to his social media platform. “THE FBI CAUGHT IRAN SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, AND GIVING ALL OF THE INFORMATION TO THE KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN. THEREFORE SHE AND HER CAMPAIGN WERE ILLEGALLY SPYING ON ME. TO BE KNOWN AS THE IRAN, IRAN, IRAN CASE! WILL KAMALA RESIGN IN DISGRACE FROM POLITICS? WILL THE COMMUNIST LEFT PICK A NEW CANDIDATE TO REPLACE HER?”
In case this weren’t quite enough, Trump published a follow-up item soon after, insisting that the vice president is “getting illegal campaign help from Iran.”
Evidently, the GOP nominee is under the impression that this story makes him look better and Harris look worse. That’s precisely backwards, and it’s worth understanding why.
First, Iran targeted both parties’ presidential campaigns. While Russia continues to target American elections in the hopes of putting Trump back in power, Tehran was an equal-opportunity hacker.
Second, the former president believes Iran gave information to Team Harris, but that’s not what happened. Iran operatives apparently tried to give unsolicited information to Democrats, but they failed.
Third, Trump sees this as an example of the Harris campaign “illegally spying on” him, which is so utterly bonkers that it’s hard not to wonder whether the Republican understands what “spying” means in English.
Fourth, the GOP nominee apparently sees all of this as some kind of parallel to his Russia scandal, but the comparison quickly falls apart: Team Trump welcomed, received, benefited from, and lied about Russian assistance. Team Harris didn’t welcome, receive, benefit from, or lie about Iranian offers of assistance, so the idea that the two are similar is absurd.
Finally, let’s not forget that Trump is on record publicly endorsing foreign intervention in American political campaigns. In fact, in June 2019, the then-president spoke to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, who asked an important hypothetical: If foreigners offered Trump campaign officials information ahead of the 2020 election, should they accept the dirt or should they call the FBI?
“I think maybe you do both,” Trump replied. “I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, ‘We have information on your opponent,’ oh I think I’d want to hear it.”
In other words, by Trump’s own reasoning, the Harris campaign would’ve been justified responding to Iran — “there’s nothing wrong with listening” — and perhaps even examining the materials Iran allegedly stole.
Fortunately for the integrity of our political system, that’s not what happened.