EXCLUSIVE: The Trump campaign is still being hacked
Email communications from individuals associated with the Trump campaign have been hacked by malign actors within the last ten days, Popular Information has confirmed.
On September 18, I was sent a message from "Robert," which contained the cover page of a dossier on Senator JD Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential nominee, dated February 23, 2024. Robert refused to identify himself except to suggest it was the same "Robert" who provided stolen internal Trump campaign materials to Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in July and August. "I thought you must have heard Robert's story," he said.
Robert eventually sent me a 271-page Vance dossier, along with similar dossiers on two other potential Donald Trump running mates — a 382-page document on North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R), dated March 2, 2024, and a 550-page document on Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), dated April 1, 2024. All of the dossiers were marked "Privileged & Confidential."
Robert boasted that he had "a lot" of other Trump campaign materials. He sent me a dozen purported emails to and from top Trump campaign staff, including senior advisor Susie Wiles, senior advisor Dan Scavino, and pollster John McLaughlin. The emails covered an 11-month period, from October 2023 to August 2024.
Robert also sent a 4-page letter, dated September 15, 2024, from an attorney representing Trump to three individuals at the New York Times. The letter has not been made public by either the Trump campaign or the paper. I provided a copy of the letter to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of Semafor, who confirmed its authenticity with someone at the New York Times who had seen it. (Smith has published a piece about the incident on Semafor.)
The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last ten days.
Who or what is "Robert"? A threat analysis published by Microsoft on August 9 reported that "[i]n June 2024, Mint Sandstorm—a group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence unit—sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor." On August 10, the Trump campaign said it was the victim of a hack by a foreign actor, citing the Microsoft report.
Three U.S. intelligence agencies have released joint statements, on August 18 and September 19, warning of "Iranian malicious cyber actors" who have obtained "stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign." Iran has denied any role in the hack.
Popular Information will not publish or excerpt the Trump campaign materials provided by Robert. The materials are stolen, and publishing the documents would be a violation of privacy and could encourage future criminal acts.
I believe that, in some circumstances, the publication of leaked materials can be justified. The Pentagon Papers, for example, were obtained illegally by Daniel Ellsberg, but the public interest in revealing the truth about the Vietnam War outweighed those concerns.
The internal Trump campaign documents obtained by Popular Information may be embarrassing or problematic to members of the Trump campaign. Some of the documents have news value. But the stolen materials do not provide the public with any fundamental new insight about Trump or his campaign. So, on balance, the relevant factors argue against publication.
My personal emails were weaponized by the media and the Trump campaign in 2016
In 2016, Russian hackers were able to access years of emails from the personal account of John Podesta, who was serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign chair. I started working for Podesta in 2001, when I was a first-year law student at Georgetown. By the 2016 election, Podesta had been a colleague and friend for 15 years. So the materials obtained by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks included correspondence between me and Podesta.
Media organizations, including the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the National Review, and others, isolated a handful of my private emails to Podesta and used them as grist for articles that attacked my integrity and professionalism. I believe these insinuations were unfounded, but I was forced to defend my reputation in the media and with my colleagues at ThinkProgress, where I worked before starting this newsletter.
I was a bit player in this drama, but it is still disturbing to have your private communications stolen by a foreign government and broadcast by major media outlets.
As Popular Information previously reported, outlets like Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times produced dozens of unflattering articles and blog posts about Podesta's emails. Everything was fair game, from Podesta's risotto recipe to his use of the word "prick" to describe a journalist he didn't like.
There were a few tidbits of news buried in Podesta's emails, but no significant scandal. Most of the coverage amounted to little more than voyeurism. A Politico "live blog" of Podesta's stolen emails had more than 50 entries published over three weeks. "All the Juiciest Dirt in The Podesta E-mails, Explained," Vanity Fair headlined a November 3, 2016 article that was representative of the coverage.
Unlike the Trump campaign materials from "Robert," Podesta's emails were posted online by Wikileaks. But the media played a critical role in amplifying the material and turning a collection of mostly anodyne emails into an ongoing scandal. The media also did not verify the authenticity of the hacked materials. The Clinton campaign declined to review 50,000 emails and contest or validate each one. The New York Times and others interpreted that as proof that they were all legitimate.
The coverage lasted for weeks because the stolen emails were released by Wikileaks in small batches. Each time a new batch of emails was released, the media swung into action, mining the stolen materials for any morsel that could be used in a story. There appeared to be little concern that both the content and cadence of political coverage at a critical juncture of the election was being dictated by foreign actors.
The New York Times published at least 199 articles about the stolen emails between the first leak in June 2016 and Election Day. The New York Times Editorial Board wrote that any negative impact their coverage had on the Clinton campaign was Hillary Clinton's fault for not voluntarily releasing the information contained in the stolen emails. "Imagine if months ago, Mrs. Clinton had done her own giant information release," the New York Times Editorial Board wrote on October 22, 2016. "[E]veryone would have long since moved on."
The media frenzy over Podesta's emails was actively encouraged by Trump and his campaign. On July 26, 2016, Trump publicly implored Russia to acquire Clinton's internal emails, promising that the media would amplify them. "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," Trump said. (It was later revealed that Russia began targeting Clinton campaign officials "on or around" the same day.)
When Wikileaks began posting the emails acquired by Russian hackers, Trump celebrated. He publicly mentioned WikiLeaks 141 times in the month before the election. "WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks," Trump told a crowd in Pennsylvania on October 10, 2016.
It was tempting to use this opportunity to turn the tables on the Trump campaign and publish the stolen campaign materials provided to me by Robert. But I believe that is the wrong approach.
A conspicuous silence
Thus far, the three major outlets that have acknowledged they also received stolen Trump campaign materials from Robert — Politico, the Washington Post, and the New York Times — have also declined to publish them. None of these outlets, however, have explained why their approach to stolen Trump campaign materials is so different from their approach to stolen Clinton campaign documents.
Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray, for example, said he "thought about who was likely to be leaking the [Trump] documents, what the motives of the hacker might have been, and whether this was truly newsworthy or not." But in 2016, the paper knew that Russia was likely behind the hack of the documents and was using them to interfere with the presidential election. Nevertheless, the Washington Post's coverage included excerpts that were not, by any fair definition, "truly newsworthy."
The Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico should be transparent about their decision-making and explain why it has changed dramatically over the last eight years.
This is superb and responsible journalism, Judd, and I applaud your ethical approach. After months and years of journalistic sleaze by U.S. media, it is time for the organizations to step up and explain their choices.
And in addition to the explanation owed to us all, is an apology to Clinton!
Judd, you are an example. Our country and world need more journalists, and professional in every industry, like you. Thank you.