Justice department charges Iranian operatives in Trump campaign hack
Source: The Guardian
Fri 27 Sep 2024 12.54 EDT
The US justice department unsealed criminal charges on Friday against three Iranian operatives suspected of hacking Donald Trumps presidential campaign and disseminating stolen information to media organizations. The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said on Friday afternoon that hackers were trying to undermine Trumps campaign, as the Republican nominee for president. He said the department was seeing increasingly aggressive Iranian cyber activity in this presidential election cycle.
The Trump campaign disclosed on 10 August that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. Multiple major news organizations that said they were leaked confidential information from inside the Trump campaign, including Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post, declined to publish it.
US intelligence officials subsequently linked Iran to a hack of the Trump election campaign and to an attempted breach of what was previously the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign, before the US president dropped his re-election bid and his vice-president took over the top of the ticket for Democrats.
Officials said the hack-and-dump operation was meant to sow discord, exploit divisions within American society and potentially influence the outcome of elections that Iran perceives to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/charges-iran-trump-campaign-hack
polichick
(37,622 posts)Wish he was as concerned with protecting the American people and our Constitution from Trump.
BumRushDaShow
(142,343 posts)Garland is the head of a Department with over 115,000 employees and multiple agencies including ones like the Bureau of Prisons and ATF, etc.
I just don't get this obsession. The same was done to Eric Holder on DU and probably would have been done to Loretta Lynch if she had been in long enough.
polichick
(37,622 posts)And the buck stops with Garland.
BumRushDaShow
(142,343 posts)but just like an article I saw a couple weeks ago that mentioned a study that found that 1/3rd of Americans had no idea that the U.S. government had 3 branches, so too it seems that applies here.
ALL the HALTS in justice being done have been done BY THE COURTS and specifically the SCOTUS
45 is "walking free" because of JOHN ROBERTS and his 5 grifting RW loons sitting on the bench.
polichick
(37,622 posts)refused to scoop up coup planners, letting elected Republicans off the hook. The court had a lot of time to do their evil deeds.
And, to be completely fair, the third branch also dropped the ball - Garland should have been replaced as soon as it was clear he had no intention of going after high-level traitors.
BumRushDaShow
(142,343 posts)They're not "off the hook". A bunch are named in the "top guy's" indictments as "unindicted co-conspirators", meaning that at any time, a "superseding indictment" can be filed. One whose phone is still in their custody is Scott Perry (Ass-R, PA-10) and whose info is expected to be released at some point (I expect once it is thoroughly vetted/redacted as necessary, although it might also be part of Smith's recent evidentiary package).
From the DCCC -
English Español
Friday, June 7, 2024
Scott Perry is starting to get nervous after a judge ordered his cell phone records originally seized after Perrys involvement in attempting to overturn the 2020 election be released to the public.
Perrys response? No comment.
Dont forget: Scott Perry played a direct role in the deadly January 6th insurrection; he spread conspiratorial lies with no backing, attempted to invalidate millions of votes, worked to block the elections certification in Pennsylvania, and much more.
Court filings have already proven Perry had an extraordinary web of communications with key figures in the insurrection, including direct contact with Trump officials who proposed deploying the military to overturn the election.
What else do we still not know about Perrys subversive agenda behind the scenes?
DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
Scott Perry deserves to further be exposed for the traitorous extremist he is. Central Pennsylvanians have had enough with his lies.
York Dispatch: Government shall unseal documents tied to Scott Perry cellphone warrant, judge orders
Mark Walters | June 7, 2024
The public is one step closer to seeing the contents of the warrant served on Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry for his cellphone as part of the Department of Justices Jan. 6 investigation. A series of court rulings in April and May in the case where The York Dispatch and other Pennsylvania media outlets are seeking to have the government unseal the documents laid the ground for an eventual disclosure subject to redactions. The FBI seized Perrys personal cellphone in August 2022, when federal authorities began exploring his role in attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which included helping install an acting attorney general who would be receptive to former President Donald Trumps lies about election fraud. U.S. District Judge Jennifer P. Wilson ordered the government to submit the documents with proposed redactions by May 22 in the most recent public filing in the case that will be two years old in September. The government filed the documents timely and under seal pursuant to both orders, according to the clerks office for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. They will not appear on the public docket sheet unless theyre unsealed by a judge. There is no estimate on when that will occur in this case, the office said. Perry, whose communications director did not reply to a request for comment, said in 2022, before his last election, that the FBIs cellphone seizure was a politically motivated attempt to influence the results of the election he ultimately won.
The Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press is representing The Dispatch, York Daily Record and PennLive in the case seeking to have the documents unsealed.We wont expect to see what the ultimate scope of the redactions is until Judge Schwab rules on which ones shes accepting and which ones shes rejecting, said Grayson Clary, attorney for the media outlets. Legal counsel listed for Perry did not return a call or email seeking comment. In a separate case, Perry was ordered in December to turn over more than 1,600 texts and emails to FBI agents investigating efforts to keep Trump in office after his 2020 election loss. Perry previously chaired the House Freedom Caucus, an ultra-conservative group of Republican lawmakers known for their occasionally brazen legislative tactics. He was appointed Wednesday to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, a panel that receives sensitive classified briefings and oversees the work of Americas spy agencies. A staunch Trump ally from Carroll Township, Perry is seeking a seventh term in Congress. His opponent is former WGAL TV anchor Janelle Stelson. Perry won his last two races in 2022 and 2020 with roughly 53% of the vote. In 2018, when the districts lines were slightly different, Perry won with 51% of the vote.
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https://dccc.org/new-court-orders-scott-perrys-jan-6-messages-to-be-released/
There is this obsession with Garland that is unhealthy... I guess that is the gentlest way to put it. This "boogieman" thing is ridiculous.
NEWSFLASH - Department heads are NOT "workers who do the work". They are figurehead appointees who "manage" various agencies, who have civil service employees, who "do the work".
polichick
(37,622 posts)not to hold high-level Republicans accountable - otherwise theyd have been in prison long ago.
BumRushDaShow
(142,343 posts)have to do with addressing the fact that courts are keeping 3 of 4 criminal cases from moving forward at this point?
There were originally 91 criminal charges brought, including to other high-ranking individuals in addition to the "kingpin" (but now slowly whittled down by the courts).
It's interesting to see the exact same nonsense happening now with Garland that happened with Eric Holder when Obama was still in office, with the same sorts of assertions.
I expect it's not coincidence.