![US charges 3 Iranian hackers and imposes sanctions for allegedly targeting Trump campaign](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/20240927-iranianhackers.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill)
US charges 3 Iranian hackers and imposes sanctions for allegedly targeting Trump campaign
CNN
US federal prosecutors on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three Iranian government-linked hackers in connection with a hacking operation aimed at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
US federal prosecutors on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three Iranian government-linked hackers in connection with a hacking operation aimed at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The three are accused of a multi-year hacking effort aimed at current and former US officials and journalists, including the breach of the Trump campaign this summer, according to an indictment unsealed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar (Yaser) Balaghi are accused of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud for their hacking efforts on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Between June and August, the hackers used access to a Trump campaign official’s personal email account to steal “debate preparation” material and information on potential vice presidential candidates, according to the indictment. The leak of some of that material to US media outlets was part of an Iranian effort to stoke discord during the election, the Justice Department alleged. “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,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Friday. “These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens do not get a say in our country’s democratic process,” Garland said.
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The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.