The United States Justice Department has unveiled criminal charges against three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps for allegedly hacking Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and attempting to disrupt the November 5 election.
This move is part of the President Joe Biden administration’s efforts to combat foreign interference in the election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The indictment which was unsealed on Friday, alleges that the three Iranian nationals – Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi – used fake email accounts to trick campaign officials into divulging sensitive information.
They then leaked this information to media outlets and the Biden campaign. The charges against them include wire fraud, identity theft, and computer fraud.
Meanwhile, Iran denied the accusations, on Thursday that it had targeted former U.S. officials describing it baseless.
But addressing news conference on Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that the US is seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity during this election cycle.
“We are seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity during this election cycle,” he said.
The Treasury Department has also imposed sanctions on the three individuals and several other members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This isn’t the first time Iran has been accused of meddling in US elections. In fact, the Iranian hacking team, known as APT42 or Charming Kitten, is notorious for its surveillance software that can record calls, steal texts, and even turn on cameras and microphones, researchers claimed.
Trump’s campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. However, several news outlets have said they declined to publish internal campaign documents that were offered to them.
Biden campaign officials also did not respond when offered Trump’s debate preparation material shortly before the two candidates met for their only debate on June 27, the indictment said.
A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran pleaded not guilty earlier this month to terrorism charges stemming from what authorities say was a plot to assassinate a U.S. politician in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards top commander in 2020.
The defendant named Trump as a potential target, according to a source, but there are not indications he was linked to the two recent attempts on Trump’s life.
The Justice Department has also targeted Russian attempts to tamper with the election, bringing criminal charges and sanctions against employees of state media outlet RT for allegedly funding pro-Trump social-media influencers in the United States.