An attorney for former President Donald Trump was targeted by Iran’s government in its recent hacking attempts against the Republican presidential nominee, according to a new report — after the US intelligence community warned Monday of foreign phishing operations targeting political candidates.
Trump’s lawyer Lindsey Halligan, who has worked for the ex-president for several years, was identified to CNN by three sources as one of Tehran’s targets — though the outlet said it was unclear to what degree the hackers were able to access information in her accounts.
The Trump campaign did not dispute the report’s identification of Halligan as a target.
“These reports of the attempted hacking of President Trump’s team by the Terrorist Regime in Iran come after recent disclosures of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump around the same time as the Butler, Pa., tragedy,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
“The Iranians are petrified that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House. Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”
The US intelligence community and the FBI said in a joint statement Monday that Iran is determined “to try to shape the outcome” of the Nov. 5 election by using “cyber operations.”
Hackers allegedly linked to the Russian government used similar tactics during the 2016 election — including by hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
Those hacks helped divide Democrats by revealing that party bosses colluded to stomp out the candidacy of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, including by providing Clinton with advance knowledge of at least one debate question.
Podesta clicked on a phishing link in March 2016 after a phony Gmail security alert urged him to update his password.
The method by which Iran targeted Halligan is unclear.
CNN also reported that informal Trump adviser Roger Stone’s email account was hacked by suspected Iranian operatives, who then leveraged the access to break into the account of a Trump campaign official.
Trump regularly boasts that his aggressive enforcement of sanctions caused economic hardship in Iran resulting in a lack of funds to arms proxy militants in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Yemen — and frequently blasts the Biden-Harris administration as too soft in its approach.
The Republican nominee and his relatives also have engaged in business with Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, with Trump’s golf courses partnering with the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner managing a $2 billion investment from Riyadh’s sovereign wealth fund.
The federal government statement Monday urged caution in online activities.
“Using strong passwords and only official email accounts for official business, updating software, avoiding clicking on links or opening attachments from suspicious emails before confirming their authenticity with the sender, and turning on multi-factor authentication will drastically improve online security and safety,” the statement said.
Halligan and Stone did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
