US charges three alleged Iran operatives over Trump campaign hack

The US Justice Department unsealed criminal charges on Friday against three alleged Iranian operatives accused of involvement in the hack of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the release of stolen information to media outlets.

Masoud Jalili, Sayyed Ali Alghamiri and Yasar Balaghi were accused of committing conspiracy to obtain protected information from a computer, commit aggravated identity theft and commit access device fraud, among other charges, court documents showed.

“The defendants' own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former president Trump's campaign in advance of the 2024 US presidential election,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters.

“We know that Iran is continuing its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the US electoral process … The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by Iran or by any foreign power to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”

The Trump campaign announced last month that it had been the target of a hack – which it blamed on Iran – after several media organisations said they had received anonymous emails containing documents that appeared to have been stolen from the former president's campaign team.

Mr Trump has played down the hack, saying operatives had stolen information that was “publicly available”.

The three men were employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their activities included a range of targets, including government officials, members of the media and NGOs, according to Justice Department.

The goal was to obtain information that could “be used to advance the malign activities of the IRGC including ongoing efforts to avenge the death of Qassem Suleimani”, the court documents claimed.

In 2020, during Mr Trump's term in office, the US carried out a strike in Baghdad that killed Mr Suleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, who supervised Iran-allied militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Iran has denied involvement in the hack of the Trump campaign.

Separately, the Treasury Department announced sanctions on seven people over their alleged involvement in attempting to influence the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections.

“Iranian state-sponsored actors undertook a variety of malicious cyber activities, such as hack-and-leak operations and spear-phishing, in an attempt to undermine confidence in the United States’ election processes and institutions and to interfere with political campaigns,” the department said.