Iran could be spying on the Donald Trump presidential campaign

Elections in the United States are not what they used to be. If the rise of polarization and political violence wasn’t enough, accusations of intervention by foreign powers have become commonplace in the past electoral cycles.

The most recent scandal involves Iranian intelligence agents spying and obtaining confidential information from the Trump campaign and approaching the Democratic Party.

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AP News writes that the FBI has reported that operatives from Iran hacked into the Trump campaign and attempted to approach different parties, including news outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

According to AP News, political current events website Politico informed that it received in July internal documents from the Trump campaign from an anonymous source only identified as “Robert”.

The dossier that “Robert” passed along apparently was research done by the Republican presidential campaign on Trump’s then-potential running mate, JD Vance.

NBC reports that Iranian operatives also approached people involved with the Democratic Party with “unsolicited e-mails”.

However, the FBI claims that so far there was no evidence that any person involved with the Democratic presidential campaign responded to the Iranian e-mails.

The FBI warned of growing efforts from other countries to intervene in the US elections, particularly from Russia, Iran, and China.

According to NBC, FBI agents argues that these countries are “trying by some measure to exacerbate divisions in U.S. society for their own benefit and see election periods as moments of vulnerability”.

Back during the Trump Administration, the New York mogul-turned-US President was accused of colluding with Russia to obtain documents from the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The report done by special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller concluded that while there was Russian interference, there was not enough evidence connecting it with Donald Trump.

British newspaper The Guardian writes that the Republican Party believes that the government of Iran is still hacking into the Trump presidential campaign.

“Iran hacked into my campaign. I don’t know what the h*** they found, I’d like to find out. Couldn’t have been too exciting”, Trump declared during a rally in New York City, as quoted by The Guardian.

Steve Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, told The Guardian that Iran’s hacking showed that Tehran was “terrified” of the “strength and resolve” of the New York mogul.

The Guardian highlights that the former US President and current Republican candidate was reportedly targeted by Iran for assassination, increasing his Secret Service protection.

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As the countdown to election day continues, it remains to be seen what influence Iran or Russia or China will have to define who’s going to be the next President of the United States.