A group of hackers affiliated with Iran claims to have made off with a vast trove of emails from Trump administration staffers, The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday morning.
"The hackers, who use the online pseudonym 'Robert,' told Reuters they had around 100 gigabytes of emails taken from the accounts of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan, longtime Trump ally and political consultant Roger Stone, and Stormy Daniels, the porn star whom the president paid to keep quiet about an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election," reported Ewan Palmer, adding that Robert may be planning to sell this data to undisclosed buyers.
Reuters has reportedly authenticated some of the compromised data, which includes "details of a financial arrangement between Trump and attorneys representing former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — now Trump’s health secretary — as well as settlement negotiations between Trump and Daniels."
Trump's hush payments to Daniels, and efforts to mislabel them in financial records, formed the basis of Trump's felony conviction in New York last year, which ultimately led to no substantial sentence for Trump but remains on the books. It was the first time a former president had ever been convicted of a crime.
The administration responded swiftly to the allegations, with FBI Director Kash Patel saying, “The FBI takes all threats against the president, his staff, and our cybersecurity with the utmost seriousness,” and cybersecurity public affairs chief Marci McCarthy saying, “This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a calculated smear campaign meant to damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants who serve our country with distinction."
This is not the first time Iran has been implicated in political cybersecurity breaches. Reporting last year indicated that Iran sought to interfere in the 2024 election against the Trump campaign, hacking into its computer systems.
