Trump campaign e-mails hacked and Iran is accused of doing it.

 

Donald Trump at a campaign event in Michigan. BBC/Reuters. 

The Trump campaign says some of their e-mails were hacked and have accused Iran of being responsible. BBC. The news outlook Politico was emailed hundreds of pages of documents, mostly concerning vetting material for Trump's VP pick, JD Vance, as well as pages related to another VP candidate, Marco Rubio. The materials were largely based on publicly available information, though the statements that Vance made before he supported Trump were labeled as potential problems. The Trump campaign confirmed that the documents were legitimate and said that it was Iran that was responsible for the hack. Microsoft confirmed that Iran was conducting "spear-phishing" attacks on a presidential campaign. Trump is unpopular in Iran and there have been suggestions that Iran may want to assassinate the presidential candidate, with a Pakistani man with ties to Iran for a plot to assassinate US officials. Iran has denied responsibility for the hack. 

My Comment:

It does not appear that these leaks are particularly damaging, unlike the Podesta e-mails that were devastating to Clinton campaign in 2016. It sounds like it is all stuff we know about JD Vance in the first place. Everyone knows that he started out as being anti-Trump and then came on board later on. That's not a huge revelation and I doubt there was much in these e-mails that is a real problem for anyone. 

Still, it shows that the Trump campaign is absolutely being targeted. It does seem like they are running a clean game as I don't doubt that if there was something damaging in these e-mails it would be the biggest story in the world right now. Politico might have thought that publishing Clinton's e-mails were off limits, but I doubt that they would have the same thoughts about Trump. 

The real question is who did it and why. The Trump campaign says it is Iran and that is very likely. But I should say that it's very possible that this was some kind of leak from the campaign itself. It's also possible that another of Trump's enemies ordered the attack. 

But I think Iran is really the most likely candidate. They really do hate Donald Trump, to the point where most Democrats would be like "not cool". Much of it stems from the fact that Trump had their popular commander of the Quds force, Qasem Soleimani, killed. Soleimani was a one of a kind commander and not someone that was easily replaced and the Iranians are still feeling his absence. 

There is also the idea that a Harris administration would be less tough on Iran than a Trump one. Given that Biden has essentially rolled over for Iran and gave them billions of dollars they aren't wrong. Of course there is a real possibility that Iran could bush even Biden/Harris too far and force them to respond so this probably isn't the greatest idea. 

Regardless though, I think we can safely conclude that Iran is going to do whatever they can to keep Donald Trump out of office. And given that there are rumors that they are trying to assassinate him, I think that we should take it seriously. I doubt that this is the end of their campaign to attack Trump.

I also think that the Trump campaign needs to take some efforts to train their people on internet security. Spear-phishing is a common hacking attack and one that has happened to a lot of different companies before, and it usually works if people don't understand when an e-mail is legitimate or not. This happens all the time and even happened at my company, so it's not like the Trump campaign is especially vulnerable or something.

Finally, I do have to point out that all the hysteria over Russia supposedly interfering with the 2016 election isn't special anymore. Even if you believe that Russia was responsible for the Podesta emails being leaked (which I don't believe, it was likely Seth Rich), now Iran is doing the same thing to the Trump campaign. Doesn't that mean now that Harris is coordinating with Iran and if she wins in 2024 it's because she cheated? Somehow I think the media will attempt to downplay this if it comes to it.