An American journalist who runs an independent newsletter released a document Thursday that appears to have been stolen from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign — the first public release of a file that federal officials said is believed to be part of the dossier. It is part of Iran’s efforts To manipulate US elections.
The PDF document is a 271-page opposition research file on former President Donald Trump’s nominee, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.
For more than two months, hackers who say the United States is tied to Iran have been trying to convince the American media to cover the files they stole. No outlet took the bait.
But on Thursday, then self-published reporter Ken Klippenstein at Substack Left The Intercept This year, one of the files was published.
“If the document had been hacked by some ‘anonymous’ hacker group, the news media would have covered it all.” I simply don’t believe in the media reporting as an arm of the government fighting foreign influences. Nor should it be the gatekeeper of what the public needs to know,” he wrote.
The paper’s release reflects how a changing media ecosystem, with more high-profile independent journalists on platforms like Substack, could affect the ability of state-sponsored hackers to carry out election-influence operations.
In an interview, Klippenstein said: “It was a Vibes election. They are very uncertain in politics. There are very few specifics and something like this can give you an idea of what the campaign is thinking.
At least three major news outlets and two independent journalists obtained what was previously described as the JD Vance dossier but did not publish it, citing what they described as a lack of newsworthy information.
The release of the Vance file appears to be a hack and leak operation similar to how Russian intelligence leaked files from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. media criticism.
It was Politico that said it began receiving the unreleased Trump documents on July 22 the first news outlet to indicate acceptance of them. The Trump campaign confirmed last month said it had been hacked and blamed Iran, but did not share details and did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. study published by Google and Microsoft It shows that the hack happened in June.
There are three US agencies is attributed to the public hacking and subsequent distribution of files to Iran.
Iranian officials have denied any connection to the hack. This was said by Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs. He told NBC News about it on Tuesday said that the country “is not interested in changing or influencing the results of this election” and that “Iranian government and official institutions do not interfere with anyone”. The people working for us didn’t do it either.”
There is a General Directorate of National Intelligence he said many times Since July, Iran has been trying to undermine Trump’s candidacy. As president, Trump authorized the assassination of military leader Qassem Soleimani. There are intelligence officials He also informed Trump They say that Iran’s assassination attempts against him continue. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporters who received the documents describe the same pattern: An AOL account emailed them documents signed by someone using the name “Robert,” who declined to be identified or why he wanted the documents covered.
NBC News was not part of Robert Persona’s direct relationship, but he looked at correspondence with a reporter at another outlet.
One of Robert’s emails, previously viewed by NBC News, included three large PDF files, each of which corresponded to three of Trump’s announced finalists for the vice presidency. The Vance file appears to be the same file that Klippenstein hosts on his site.
X, formerly known as Twitter, took the harshest initial stance against Klippenstein after the Substack post, blocking accounts that shared links to his post and suspending his account. The site’s owner, Elon Musk, was a staunch critic of how Twitter’s previous management restricted access to the New York Post’s “October Surprise” story about scandalous material found on a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Former intelligence officers time warned The laptop is said to be relevant to Russian intelligence work, although no direct link has been clearly established.
An X spokesperson told NBC News that Klippenstein has been “temporarily suspended for violating our policy on posting unreacted personal information” regarding Vance.
Klippenstein wrote a follow-up post on Substack on Thursday defending his decision to post the file, admitting it violated X’s rules.
“Was I wrong not to redact the ‘personal’ information about JD Vance? If I wanted a Twitter account, I probably would. But in principle? I’m all for it,” he said.
Substack representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.