Iranian officials told Newsweek that U.S. intelligence claims of the Islamic Republic engaging in efforts to interfere with former President Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign were baseless and called on officials in Washington to provide evidence to support them.
“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,” the Iranian Mission to the United Nations said in a statement shared with Newsweek. “As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election.
“Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly.”
The comments followed a joint statement issued earlier Monday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in which the three agencies identified “increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.”
“This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign,” the statement added, “which the IC [intelligence community] attributes to Iran.”
At a time when the ODNI, FBI and CISA said “Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in terms of the impact they could have on its national security interests,” the U.S. agencies asserted they were “confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.”
“Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process,” the statement added, noting that such activity was “not new” and had been previously attributed to Iran and Russia in previous election cycles.
Newsweek has reached out to the ODNI and CISA for comment. The FBI declined Newsweek‘s request for comment.
Iranian officials have previously rejected accusations that they engaged in any election interference and have told Newsweek they did not have any preference in the outcome of the election set this November.
While in office, Trump took a hardline stance against Tehran, pulling Washington out of a multilateral nuclear deal and imposing sanctions old and new against the Islamic Republic. As regional tensions soared through 2019, including clashes between U.S. forces and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, Trump ordered the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.
Iran responded by launching a barrage of missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq, and Iranian officials continue to call for the arrest of Trump and senior members of his administration. Ominous imagery and threats targeting Trump have also surfaced in Iranian media and, in the wake of an assassination attempt against the former U.S. leader last month, reports emerged of a separate plot against Trump tied to Iran, followed by the arrest of a Pakistani national in New York this month.
Iran and Pakistani denied any ties to the alleged plan to kill Trump.
Less than two weeks after news broke of a purported Iran-backed plot to assassinate Trump, Politico reported last month that it had received anonymous emails containing a dossier said to showcase political vulnerabilities of Trump’s vice president pick, Ohio Senator JD Vance. Other outlets, including The New York Times and the New York Post, later reported receiving similar materials.
Microsoft issued a report this month identifying four actors—Sefid Flood, Mint Sandstorm, Peach Sandstorm and Storm -2035—all said to be engaging in “malign” activity on behalf of Iran in the leadup to the November election. The Trump campaign was not specifically named in the report as the target.
Days later, however, the Trump campaign said the documents received by the news outlets had been “obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process.”
Trump has criticized the Iran policies pursued by his Democratic rivals, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is her party’s nominee to run against Trump after Biden dropped out of the race last month. Trump has called for tougher measures, particularly amid another period of heightened regional tensions surrounding the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza.
Yet Trump also opened the door for a potential reset in relations during remarks made at a rally in New Jersey last Thursday.
“I’m not looking to be bad to Iran, we’re going to be friendly, I hope, with Iran, maybe, but maybe not,” Trump said. “But we’re going to be friendly I hope, we’re going to be friendly, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
