White House: We condemn any foreign attempts to interfere in U.S. elections and take it very seriously

John Kirby, the National Security Council's Coordinator for Strategic Communications, stated regarding reports of Iranian government hacking of Trump's campaign that the U.S. government considers this threat to be 'very, very serious.' During a press conference on Monday, August 13, he said, 'We strongly condemn any action by a foreign government or entity that seeks to interfere in our electoral process or attempts to undermine trust in our democratic institutions in any way, and we will take this matter very, very seriously.' Kirby referred reporters to the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI for more information on this issue, emphasizing that 'last month's intelligence community report indicated that the Islamic Republic of Iran is attempting to influence the U.S. presidential election, and 'we are certainly aware that they have such intentions.' Following the announcement by Donald Trump's presidential campaign that their email systems had been hacked by hackers working for the Islamic Republic of Iran, analysts and security experts warned on Sunday, August 20, that there may be broader efforts by foreign powers to disrupt the U.S. presidential election. So far, Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, two Democratic members of the House of Representatives from California who have been involved in intelligence and security committees, have called for briefings and the declassification of information related to potential foreign interference in the elections. News organizations, including The Washington Post and Politico, reported that in recent weeks they have received documents labeled 'special and confidential' from an anonymous user named 'Robert,' containing information about internal investigations regarding J.D. Vance, Donald Trump's vice-presidential candidate. Donald Trump wrote on his social media account 'Truth Social' on Saturday evening, 'Microsoft just informed us that the Iranian government hacked one of our many websites - this is never a good thing!' Microsoft and other security firms stated that an Iranian group operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was involved in this attack. A National Security Council spokesperson said on Saturday that the Biden administration 'strongly condemns any foreign government or entity that attempts to interfere in our electoral process or seeks to undermine trust in our democratic institutions.' The FBI also announced on Saturday, August 20, that it was aware of media reports but had no comment on the matter. Most experts say that as the elections approach, they expect more hacks and disclosures and are concerned about how the public and media will react. A wave of new reports from government and private sector entities has emerged regarding increased disinformation campaigns by the Russian and Iranian governments regarding the U.S. elections. In this context, channels used to promote political views can be exploited to disseminate hacked data.