US Federal Authority Immediately Files Indictment Regarding Alleged Hacking Of Trump's Campaign Team By Iran

Donald Trump. (Wikimedia Commons/DoD/Navydia Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro)

JAKARTA - The United States federal authorities are preparing to file criminal charges for alleged hacking and leak attacks by Iran against presidential candidate campaign team Donald Trump, according to a number of parties familiar with the matter.

The FBI investigation focused on an online persona named "Robert" who contacted American journalists, these people said, who spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the details of the ongoing investigation.

Persona shared campaign documents they mistakenly claimed working with Trump's campaign, the people said, as reported by The Washington Post Sept. 13.

Investigators say people, or people, who disguise themselves as Robert act on behalf of the Iranian government and offer data files stolen from Trump's advisory email account to news organizations.

"Criminal charges can be filed in a matter of days," these people said.

But on the other hand, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice and the FBI declined to comment.

Although Trump's campaign team did not immediately comment, among those targeted for the hack was one of the most senior officials of his campaign team,manfaat Wiles, and advisers to the campaign team, said people familiar with the investigation.

More details about the allegations and who will be charged specifically are not immediately available.

It is known, when foreign countries carry out cyber attacks on US figures, the perpetrators often live in countries that will not extradite them to the United States, so it is unlikely that they will be brought to justice.

However, in the last decade US officials have launched a "name and shame" campaign against hackers in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in hopes of preventing such action.

Earlier, the FBI and US intelligence agencies concluded last month that Iran was responsible for recent hacking attempts against Trump's presidential campaign and incumbent Joe Biden and Harris.

Earlier, people familiar with the investigation said they saw no evidence of Biden's advisory accounts being compromised, although they continued to collect evidence.

Later, Justice Department officials now believe they have enough evidence to file criminal charges, people familiar with the matter said.

The evidence reviewed by investigators includes at least a few "Robert" emails with reporters, the people said. The persona offers reporters files on The Washington Post and Politico.

It was not immediately clear how the authorities got the messages.

As part of the scheme, campaign staff received phishing emails designed to appear legitimate but could give intruders access to receiver communications, The Post previously reported, citing people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Justice Department's Head of the National Security Division Matthew Olsen in a speech in New York yesterday warned that foreign countries' attempts to interfere in America's general elections "carried a clear and real danger to our democracy."

Speaking less than two months before Election Day, Olsen said Iran was "making greater efforts to influence this year's election than it had done in the previous election cycle."

"Iran activity is getting more aggressive ahead of this election," he said.

"Iran considers this year's election to be very important in influencing Iran's national security interests, increasing Tehran's tendency to try to shape the outcome," he continued.

It repeated an FBI warning early in the summer that it said "Iran has gone through social engineering and other efforts are trying to access individuals with direct access to the President's campaign of the two political parties."

Such tactics are nothing new. US intelligence officials say Tehran's efforts to spark social disputes in the United States and undermine Trump's efforts to return to the White House are a repeat of the country's efforts in 2020. Russia has also led a similar cyberattack.

"Iran and Russia have used this tactic not only in the United States during this federal election cycle and previously, but also in other countries around the world," the FBI and US intelligence agencies said in a joint statement this summer.

The FBI is known to have started investigating alleged Iranian hacking aimed at the US presidential candidate campaign team in June, before President Joe Biden withdrew from his candidacy and supported Vice President Kamala Harris as a candidate for the Democratic Party.

The FBI is partnering with Google and Microsoft, two major email service providers, to examine what appears to be phishing attempts targeting people linked to the presidential campaign.

The FBI and private computer security experts say Iran was behind a spear-phishing email sent in June to Roger Stone, Trump's informal adviser.

"It was successful that the hackers managed to control Stone's email account and send messages with spear-phishing links to other people," said people familiar with the investigation.

Stone himself admitted to having been contacted by the FBI and was informed that his email had been hacked.