WASHINGTON – U.S. law enforcement on Friday filed charges against three Iranians who allegedly stole materials from former President Donald Trump’s campaign and tried to pass them on to news media and Democrats to influence the 2024 election.
The Justice Department has lifted the seal the prosecution It details a years-long hacking plan by Iran that targeted the email accounts of US government officials, journalists, think tank experts and most recently the 2024 presidential campaigns.
“The defendants’ own words make it clear that they sought to undermine former President Trump’s campaign leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Friday. Prosecutors believe the defendants acted from Iran and were never in the United States
“We know that Iran continues its brazen efforts to sow discord, undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process and advance its malign activities on behalf of the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), a designated foreign terrorist organization,” Garland said.
The unsealed indictment in the US District Court for the District of Columbia came three days after Trump’s campaign announced that the former president had been briefed by US intelligence officials about “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.” it said in a statement on Tuesday from Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director.
“Major threats to my life from Iran,” Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, posted on X. Trump on Wednesday recommended at a campaign stop in Mint Hill, North Carolina, that Iran may be responsible for two assassination attempts on him.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not released a statement on the matter. It’s the latest Press release focuses on the Iranian plot to hack Trump’s campaign.
“It takes two to tango”
Global politics continued to be at the top of the U.S. presidential election headlines on Friday as Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Trump Tower after announcing the invitation in a walkabout tardy Thursday press conference There he promised to negotiate a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia “fairly quickly” if elected.
The pair met behind closed doors in Trump’s New York skyscraper on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week and a day after Zelensky traveled to Washington Meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden and bipartisan lawmakers.
“After November we have to make a decision, and we hope that the strengths of the United States will be very strong, and we are counting on that. That’s why I decided to meet with both candidates,” Zelensky said said during brief joint comments with Trump before the meeting.
Trump, who rejected When he said during a live presidential debate whether he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia, he deviated from that stance and suggested Friday that he wanted a victory for the Western ally.
“I think the fact that we’re even together today is a very good sign and hopefully we’ll get a good win because (if) the other side wins, I don’t think you’re going to get victories with anything “To be honest,” Trump said during joint remarks.
During the exchange, Trump emphasized his “very good relationship” with Putin and said he could resolve the war “very quickly.”
“But you know, it takes two to tango,” he said.
Harris on the border
Harris traveled to the southern border of the United States on Friday to advocate for a bipartisan border security agreement collapsed In early 2024, shortly after Trump publicly criticized it.
According to a senior campaign official, Harris was scheduled to give a key speech in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, in which she planned to discuss setting and enforcing recent immigration rules at the border.
“Donald Trump values self-interest more than solutions. He wants the problem to continue, not a solution for the American people,” Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday.
“When he was president, Trump created chaos at the border by worsening our already broken immigration system — leaving a mess for the Biden-Harris administration to clean up. “Americans deserve a president who will put national security above their own interest – that is Kamala Harris,” the statement continued.
Trump attacks Harris over border crossings into the US – his central campaign issue – dishonestly calling her “border czar” and claiming she has caused the “worst border crisis in the history of the world.”
“If you look at the four years that have passed since she was named ‘Border Czar,’ Kamala Harris will be visiting the southern border that she has completely destroyed,” Trump said at his press conference on Thursday.
Biden, in February 2021, commissioned Harris with strategies to address the “root cause” of migration from Central American countries, including economic insecurity, government corruption and gender-based violence.
Trump has historically painted the convoluted issue of immigration at the U.S. southern border with a broad brush, announcing his first presidential campaign in 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists.” During his own presidency in 2018, he warned against immigrants “Caravan”Crossing from Mexico to the USA. He has promised mass deportations if elected in November.
The US Department of Homeland Security publicly Publications numerous border raids, arrests and expulsions.
Back on track
The following appearances are planned for the presidential and vice presidential candidates:
- Harris will speak on Friday in Douglas, Arizona.
- Trump is scheduled to give a speech in Walker, Michigan on Friday, followed by a town hall in Warren, Michigan.
- Trump is expected to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday confirmed from States Newsroom last week.
- Not to be outdone on the college football scene, Harris’ Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Tim Walz will be at Saturday’s Michigan-Minnesota football game in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- Harris will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada, for a campaign rally on Sunday.
- Trump will also hold a rally on Sunday, this time in Erie, Pennsylvania.
