WASHINGTON – U.S. law enforcement announced charges Friday against three Iranians who allegedly stole former President Donald Trump’s campaign materials and tried to give them to the news media and Democrats in an attempt to influence the 2024 election.
Department of Justice open indictment detailing a years-long intrusion scheme led by Iran that targeted the email accounts of U.S. government officials, journalists, think tanks and, most recently, the 2024 presidential campaigns.
“It is clear from the defendants’ own words that they attempted to undermine former President Trump’s campaign ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. he said at Friday’s press conference. Prosecutors believe the defendants operated in Iran and have never been in the United States
“We know that Iran continues its brazen efforts to stoke dissent, undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process and escalate its malign activities in support of the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), a designated foreign terrorist organization,” Garland said.
The unsealed indictment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came three days after the Trump campaign revealed that the former president had been briefed by U.S. intelligence officials about “real and specific threats from Iran that he will murder him.” , campaign communications director.
“Major threats from Iran against my life,” Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, wrote on Wednesday. Trump suggested during a campaign event in Mint Hill, North Carolina, that Iran may be responsible for two assassination attempts against him.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not released a statement on the matter. It’s the newest press release focuses on an Iranian plot to hack the Trump campaign.
“It takes two to tango”
Global politics continued to top the headlines in Friday’s U.S. presidential election as Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Trump Tower after announcing the invitation behind schedule Thursday in a whirlwind meeting press conference where he promised that if elected, he would reach a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia “pretty quickly.”
They met behind closed doors in Trump’s New York skyscraper on the sidelines of this week’s UN General Assembly and the day after Zelensky went to Washington meet 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 powerful and we count on that. That’s why I decided to meet with both candidates,” Zelensky he said during brief joint comments with Trump before the meeting.
Trump who rejected during a live presidential debate to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia, he departed from that position and suggested on Friday that he wanted the Western ally to win.
“I think the fact that we’re together today is a very good sign and I hope we have a good victory because (if) the other side wins, I don’t think you’re going to have a victory in anything to be honest with you,” Trump said during joint statements.
During the exchange, Trump emphasized his “very good relationship” with Putin and said he could end the war “very quickly.”
“But you know, it takes two to tango,” he said.
Harris on the border
Harris traveled to the U.S. southern border on Friday to negotiate a bilateral border security agreement he fell in early 2024, shortly after publicly criticizing Trump.
According to a senior campaign official, Harris was scheduled to deliver what her campaign had announced would be a keynote speech in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, where she planned to talk about setting and enforcing fresh immigration rules at the border.
“Donald Trump cares more about his own interests than about solutions. “He wants the problem to continue, not the solution for the American people,” Harris campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday.
“When Trump was president, he created chaos at the border, taking our already broken immigration system and making it worse, leaving a mess for the Biden-Harris administration to pristine up. The American people deserve a president who puts national security above self-interest – that’s Kamala Harris,” the statement continued.
Trump is attacking Harris over US border crossings – a major issue of his campaign – calling her the unfair nickname “border czar” and claiming she has caused “the worst border crisis in the history of the world.”
“When 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 a news conference Thursday.
Biden in February 2021 task Harris for developing a strategy to combat the “root cause” of migration from Central American countries, including economic insecurity, government corruption and gender-based violence.
Trump has historically painted the convoluted immigration issue at the U.S. southern border with a broad brush when announcing his first presidential campaign in 2015, describing Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” During his presidency in 2018, he warned against immigrants “caravans”crossing to the USA from Mexico. He has promised mass deportations if elected in November.
United States Department of Homeland Security publicly releases number of border encounters, detentions and expulsions.
Back on the trail
The presidential and vice-presidential candidates are scheduled to make the following appearances:
- Harris will speak Friday in Douglas, Arizona.
- Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks Friday in Walker, Michigan, and then at a town hall in Warren, Michigan.
- Trump is expected to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game Saturday in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama. confirmed by States Newsroom last week.
- Not to be outdone on the college football scene, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is scheduled to attend Saturday’s Michigan-Minnesota football game in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- On Sunday, Harris will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada, for a campaign rally.
- Trump will also host a Sunday rally, this time in Erie, Pennsylvania.
