Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 13, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2024 B4 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS I WORLD FBI probing alleged Iran hack attempts targeting Trump, Biden camps T HE FBI is investigating suspected hacking attempts by Iran target- ing both a Trump associate and advisers to the Biden-Harris campaign, according to people familiar with the matter, as the agency formally acknow- ledged Monday it has opened a high- stakes national security investigation months before Election Day. Three staffers on the Biden-Har- ris campaign received spear phishing emails that were designed to appear legitimate but could give an intruder access to the recipients’ communica- tions, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive in- vestigation. So far, investigators have not found evidence that those hacking attempts were successful, these people said. The FBI began the investigation in June, suspecting Iran was behind the attempts to steal data from two U.S. presidential campaigns. Agents con- tacted Google, among other companies, to discuss what appeared to be a phish- ing effort targeting people associated with the Biden campaign, these people said. The new details show the investiga- tion is broader and involves more po- tential victims than previously known. It also underscores the degree to which hacking by foreign nations targeting U.S. political candidates may simply be a recurring feature of politics in the digital age. U.S. officials concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presi- dential election to help Donald Trump, including by hacking and releasing internal emails and documents from Democrats. “We can confirm the FBI is investi- gating this matter,” the agency said in a brief statement. On Saturday, the FBI said only that it was aware of media reports of an alleged hack. The Trump campaign said it had been hacked after reporters received copies of an internal campaign vetting document on Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s run- ning mate. An official with the Harris campaign said it “vigilantly monitors and protects against cyberthreats and we are not aware of any security breaches of our systems.” The attempted intrusion took place before U.S. President Joe Biden announced that he would not stand for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee. While the FBI suspects Iran is be- hind the phishing attempts that were tracked in June, it is less clear to in- vestigators whether the nation is also responsible for the sending of internal campaign data to reporters, according to people familiar with the matter. The Washington Post and Politico have both reported they were contacted by a per- son claiming to have access to internal Trump campaign documents who used an AOL account and the name “Rob- ert.” The Trump campaign has blamed Iran for those leaks. The FBI investigation raises the stakes for both the presidential contest, already rife with accusations of dirty tricks and election interference, and the government’s credibility in assur- ing a fair election. When the Trump campaign initially concluded it had been hacked, it did not alert the FBI, according to campaign advisers. The decision not to alert the FBI was made partially because of the campaign’s distrust of the agency, the people said. Trump, who blamed Democrats for poor information security when they were hacked in 2016, has expressed frustration over the hack, these people said. People familiar with the matter said the phishing attempt appears to have succeeded in compromising the com- munications of at least one person not formally connected to either campaign: Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ad- viser to Trump. “I was informed by the authorities that a couple of my personal email ac- counts have been compromised,” Stone said in a brief interview. “I really don’t know more about it. And I’m cooperat- ing. It’s all very strange.” Stone’s account was used to send emails to the Trump campaign con- taining a link that, if clicked, could have allowed Iran to intercept the tar- get’s other emails, the people familiar with the matter said. That Stone was an apparent victim in the effort is remarkable given his long, tangled history with hacked emails. Stone was convicted of seven felonies, including lying about his attempts dur- ing the 2016 presidential campaign to get details of Hillary Clinton’s private emails from the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Trump pardoned him in 2020 a month before he left office. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about the FBI’s investiga- tion, but on Saturday spokesman Steven Cheung said the documents received by reporters “were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process.” A Trump adviser said additional measures, designed by outside consult- ants, were now being taken to secure emails. Staff members have also been instructed not to put any sensitive docu- ments or information in emails, given that the campaign believes multiple foreign countries are trying to hack them, this person said. Last week, Microsoft issued a public report warning that Iranian hackers had tried to break into the email ac- count of a “high-ranking official” on a U.S. presidential campaign in June. The company did not publicly identify the campaign or confirm whether it be- lieved the hack had been successful but a person familiar with Microsoft’s work confirmed that the report’s reference was to the Trump campaign. While that evidence is part of what is being investigated by the FBI, it’s now clear that agents are pursuing a larger set of alleged hacking attempts than what the Microsoft report describes. Over the weekend, a spokesman for Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations issued a statement dismissing the allegations of such hacking, say- ing: “We do not accord any credence to such reports. The Iranian Government neither possesses nor harbours any in- tent or motive to interfere in the United States presidential election.” U.S. intelligence officials said in July that Iran is working to stoke societal discord in the United States and under- mine Trump’s bid to regain the White House, a repeat of Iranian efforts in 2020. Prosecutors in New York last month also charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate a politician or U.S. gov- ernment official on American soil. The alleged Iranian-backed plot, however, had raised concerns about Trump’s safety in the weeks before the appar- ently unrelated attempt on his life at a July rally, according to U.S. officials familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. — The Washington Post DEVLIN BARRETT, JOSH DAWSEY, TYLER PAGER, ISAAC ARNSDORF, SHANE HARRIS RICK BOWMER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES U.S. intelligence officials said in July that Iran is working to stoke societal discord in the United States and undermine Donald Trump’s bid to regain the White House. Judge rules against RFK Jr. in fight to be on New York’s ballot ALBANY, N.Y. — A judge ruled Mon- day that independent presidential can- didate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name should not appear on New York’s ballot, saying that he falsely claimed a New York residence on nominating petitions despite living in California. Kennedy’s lawyers quickly vowed to appeal ahead of the Aug. 15 deadline. If the judge’s ruling is upheld, it would not only keep Kennedy off the ballot in New York but could also lead to chal- lenges in other states where he used an address in New York City’s suburbs to gather signatures. The ruling came after a North Caro- lina judge decided earlier Monday that Kennedy can remain on that state’s bal- lot following a separate challenge on different grounds. Judge Christina Ryba, in her 34-page decision, said the rented bedroom Ken- nedy claimed as his home in the state wasn’t a “bona fide and legitimate resi- dence, but merely a ‘sham’ address that he assumed for the purpose of main- taining his voter registration” and fur- thering his political candidacy. “Given the size and appearance of the spare bedroom as shown in the photographs admitted into evidence, the Court finds Kennedy’s testimony that he may return to that bedroom to reside with his wife, family members, multiple pets, and all of his personal be- longings to be highly improbable, if not preposterous,” the judge wrote. Ryba said evidence submitted in trial showed Kennedy had a “long-standing pattern” of borrowing addresses from friends and relatives so he could main- tain his voter registration in New York State while actually residing in Califor- nia. “Using a friend’s address for polit- ical and voting purposes, while barely stepping foot on the premises, does not equate to residency under the Election Law,” the judge wrote. “To hold other- wise would establish a dangerous pre- cedent and open the door to the fraud and political mischief that the Election Law residency rules were designed to prevent.” Clear Choice Action, the Democrat- aligned political action committee that backed the legal challenge, said the rul- ing makes it clear that Kennedy “lied about his residency and provided a false address on his filing papers and candidate petitions in New York, inten- tionally misleading election officials and betraying voters’ trust.” The lawsuit, filed on behalf of sever- al voters in the state, claims Kennedy’s state nominating petition falsely listed a residence in well-to-do Katonah while actually living in the Los Angeles area since 2014, when he married Curb Your Enthusiasm actor Cheryl Hines. Kennedy, who led a New York-based environmental group for decades and whose namesake father was a New York senator, argued during the trial that he has lifelong ties to New York and intends to move back. During the trial, which ran for less than four days, Kennedy said he cur- rently rents a room in a friend’s home in Katonah, about 65 kilometres north of midtown Manhattan, though has only slept in that room once due to his con- stant campaign travel. The 70-year-old candidate testified that his move to California a decade ago was so he could be with his wife, and that he always planned to return to New York. Barbara Moss, who rents the room to Kennedy, testified that he pays her US$500 a month. But she acknowledged there is no written lease and that Ken- nedy’s first payment wasn’t made until after the New York Post published a story casting doubt on Kennedy’s claim that he lived at that address. The judge also heard from a longtime friend of Kennedy’s who said the can- didate had regularly been an overnight guest at his own Westchester home from 2014 through 2017 but was not a tenant there as Kennedy had claimed. Attorneys representing several New York voters grilled Kennedy in often heated exchanges as they sought to make their case, pointing to govern- ment documents including a federal statement of candidacy with a Califor- nia address and even a social media video in which Kennedy talks about training ravens at his Los Angeles home. — The Associated Press MICHAEL HILL AND PHILIP MARCELO Trump’s return to X marred by technical glitches ahead of Musk interview SAN FRANCISCO — Former U.S. president Donald Trump’s much antici- pated interview on X with owner Elon Musk was marred by technical errors Monday evening and started more than 40 minutes late as more than a million users tuned into the event, which the platform’s owner said would be “un- scripted with no limits on subject mat- ter.” Trump made a flurry of posts on X earlier in the day ahead of the inter- view, reviving a social media account that was central to his 2016 election and turbulent presidency but had been dormant since last August. Trump had been banned from the site, then called Twitter, after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrec- tion. Musk restored Trump’s account about a month after purchasing the site in 2022 but Trump largely stayed off the platform in favour of Truth Social, a similar platform in which he owns a majority stake. The interview was set to be a major moment for both Trump and Musk, giv- ing the former president a much great- er audience than he reaches on Truth Social and adding to the entrepreneur’s recent efforts to use his platform to sway the election. The site repeatedly crashed as users attempted to access an audio conversation streamed using X’s Spaces feature. As hundreds of thousands of users initially waited for the event to start, Musk claimed a “massive DDOS attack on X” was to blame for the delay. Monday night’s technical problems echo an episode last year when Musk’s site crashed repeatedly as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) attempted to launch his own failed presidential campaign using the platform. Musk had previ- ously said he was making preparations to avert a similar outcome this time around. “Am going to do some system scal- ing tests tonight & tomorrow in ad- vance of the conversation with real- DonaldTrump,” he wrote Sunday. But Musk had also suggested X might need a little bit of luck. “I hope it works,” he said, followed by a prayer-hands and cry-laughing emoji. Still, the revival of Trump’s account potentially heralds a new era for the former president’s campaign as he seeks to regain the spotlight from his opponent, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris. For years, Trump used Twitter as his primary megaphone as he railed against undocumented immigrants, the results of the 2020 election and virtu- ally anyone who crossed him. His post- ings on Truth Social haven’t garnered the same attention that his tweets once did. It’s unclear whether or how much Trump will continue using Musk’s plat- form but in a campaign email Monday, the former president stated: “I’m back on X for a short time.” A permanent re- turn to the platform by Trump would be a major win for Musk, who has begun to more actively court a right-wing audi- ence to his platform. Trump could also widen his audi- ence by shifting to the larger platform, where he has more than 88 million fol- lowers compared to only 7.5 million on Truth Social. The same campaign ad posted around the same time on both platforms Monday attracted 172,000 likes on X within two hours, compared with less than 9,000 on Truth Social. Trump’s posts came hours before he was scheduled to join an interview with Musk streamed on X, which the entre- preneur said would be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter.” No leader of a major social media site has actively used their platform to support a presi- dential candidate, an unprecedented dynamic that has raised alarm among some Democrats, who have accused Musk of tilting X in favour of the for- mer president. A representative for the Harris cam- paign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the candidate was offered a similar oppor- tunity to appear on X. In response to a post last week speculating about wheth- er Harris would agree to a similar interview with Musk, he replied “I’m open to it.” On Monday, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to investigate claims of bias on the platform. A handful of pro-Harris ac- counts have been labelled as spam or restricted in recent weeks. “Egregious falsehoods and conspiracy theories are becoming commonplace on X,” Nadler wrote. “While we may have significant disagreement over the degree and ex- tent of content moderation, I hope that we can at least agree that enforcement on a major platform like X should be fair to both sides.” — The Washington Post TRISHA THADANI, DREW HARWELL, FAIZ SIDDIQUI ;