Donald Trump has claimed that Iran is behind the hack on his presidential campaign, saying that nothing more than ‘publicly available data’ was taken. The accusation emerged after Politico said it had received internal campaign materials, including a profile of Trump’s prospective vice-presidential nominee, JD Vance. 

 Then, on his Truth Social platform, Trump stated, “Just learned that Microsoft Corporation reported that ‘one of many’ of our websites was hacked by the Iranian Government – Never a very good thing to do!” Still, Trump pointed out that hackers only gather information that is available to the public, but such behavior is still intolerable. It smirks that Iran and others will stop at nothing because our Government Is Weak and Ineffective, but it won’t be for long, Trump boasted. 

 Trump’s comments on Tuesday are consistent with a report that Microsoft provided on Friday about a cyberattack that involved Iran-based hackers. The report indicated that these hackers had in June sent a spear-phishing email to a top official in a presidential campaign from the email address of a former senior campaign official. Microsoft refrained from releasing the official or adviser who figured in the incident. 

 Politico said it had been contacted by an unknown user under the pseudonym ‘Robert’ and offered internal campaign messages as well as a 271-page dossier on JD Vance. Politico wrote that the dossier seemed to have been created during the campaign’s background check on Vance and was compiled from his prior criminal record and public statements. 

 Steven Cheung, the Trump Campaign’s spokesman, told Politico, “The Iranians understand that President Trump will curb terror as he did in the initial years of his presidency. 

 The disclosure of the hack arrives at a rather inconvenient moment for Trump’s campaign, which has been experiencing a change in fortunes lately. After Trump received a great boost from the Republican National Convention, his campaign team suffered reverses in the last few weeks. The battle of the White House cascaded when Joe Biden was left bamboozled when he decided to pull out of the race and support Kamala Harris for the presidency. Harris, along with her vice-president electoral partner, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, has recently risen in the polls, surpassing Trump in several swing states. 

 An opinion poll conducted by the New York Times revealed that Harris had a four-point advantage over Trump in the three states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – all-important battleground states in the United States. The poll results show shifts and growth of the Harris and Walz in the last few weeks as the race towards the November elections intensifies.