By: Max Edelstein

Edited By: James Halsell

On August 10, 2024, the Trump campaign publicly alleged that Iranian actors using a spear phishing campaign, had gained access to internal campaign correspondence and stolen sensitive documents. Included in these documents was a campaign background research dossier containing damaging information on Trump’s Vice-Presidential pick J.D. Vance.

Just nine days later, on August 19, 2024, the ODNI (Office for Director of National Intelligence), FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) issued a joint statement corroborating the Trump campaign’s statement attributing the intrusion to Iranian actors and warning that Iran, Russia, and China were all engaged in cyber-enabled efforts to influence the election. Additionally, the FBI announced that it was also investigating Iranian efforts to break into the Harris campaign. 

For many, this incident elicited memories of the infamous Russian hack-and-leak operation that compromised the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. However, the fallout from the 2024 hack-and-leak operation has been markedly different from that of the 2016 operation. The question then is why?

First, the U.S. government has moved rapidly to publicly attribute the hack-and-leak operation. This has coincided with a concerted effort to limit the spread of misinformation surrounding the incident as well as the information stolen. On September 27th, 2024, the U.S. Justice Department identified and charged three IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) members with a conspiracy to influence the U.S. Presidential election. The indictment brought by the Justice Department clearly identifies the process by which the Iranian actors gained access to the Trump campaign, their failed attempts to spread the stolen information to both news outlets and the Democratic campaign, and the goal of the actors to influence the election. This rapid, detailed, and public response is markedly different from the response in 2016 which was slow, confusing, and failed to stop the widespread dissemination of leaked information. 

Second, the sensitive documents stolen from the Trump campaign, while containing some damaging information on J.D. Vance, do not compare in size, scale, or interest to the thousands of documents, emails, and attachments that were stolen and leaked in the 2016 hack. The scale and level of access of the 2016 Russian-hack is significantly larger than that of the 2024 Iranian-hack. 

Third, the media’s restrained and limited reaction to the 2024 hack represents a dramatic shift in the tenor and publishing strategy of election related hack-and-leak operations. In 2016, when DCleaks[.]com and WikiLeaks began to publish leaked emails and documents just days before the DNC (Democratic National Convention), the media widely reported on damaging information and public outcry was further amplified through viral social media campaigns. As WikiLeaks continued to publish information provided by the Russian GRU (military intelligence service), media fervor did not subsist and damaging information from the 2016 hack-and-leak operation was certainly in the public’s minds as they went to vote. 

However, in 2024, despite Politico, the New York Times, and the Washington Post indicating they had received the leaked Trump campaign material, none of the news media organizations decided to reveal its details. Rather, they focused on investigating the hacking incident and broadly referring to the documents sent to them. 

The dramatically different approach by news media organizations in 2024 vs. 2016, is likely driven by an understanding gleaned from the 2016 incident, that publishing leaked campaign material regardless of political affiliation allows Iran, Russia, China or any other threat actor to sow discord and achieve their goal of election influence. The media’s decision to withhold the documents, refer to government statements, and generally move more cautiously has resulted in a significantly more muted public response to election hacks and leaked material. 

This is in part due to a concerted effort by the US Intelligence Community to discourage the spread and publishing of hack-and-leak materials to limit the impact of these operations. Following the publishing of the Mueller report in 2016, the US government’s hope is that this new approach disincentivizes future hack-and-leak efforts as these moves rely on American organizations to generate outrage, reach, and influence. 

With the incredibly tightly contested 2024 election only weeks away, it seems that hack-and-leak operations conducted by foreign governments will be far less influential than their 2016 counterparts. This is a positive development for the US government and its citizens, and displays how much both the US government and US media organizations learned from the fallout of the 2016 election hack and Mueller report.