Emails from people associated with former President Donald Trump's campaign continue to be hacked and distributed by "malign actors," according to a journalist who said he's received copies of the items that were stolen.
Judd Legum, the founder and author of the Substack "Popular Information," reported Tuesday on his news site that he was offered stolen campaign dossiers from a person identifying himself as the same "Robert" who, this past summer, provided internal campaign materials to Politico, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.
He said that on Sept. 18, he got a message containing the cover page of a dossier on Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, dated on Feb. 23, 2024, before he became the vice presidential nominee.
Eventually, Legum said "Robert" sent him the full 271-page dossier on Vance and the documents on Trump's other potential running mates, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The dossiers were marked "Privileged & Confidential."
The source also sent a dozen purported emails involving senior advisers Susie Wiles and Dan Scavino, and pollster John McLaughlin covering the 11-month period, from October 2023 to August 2024.
Legum also noted that "Robert" sent a 4-page letter, dated Sept. 15, from an attorney representing Trump to three people at The New York Times, and has had the letter confirmed.
"The legitimacy of the letter proves that the person or people representing themselves as Robert has stolen electronic communications from people associated with the Trump campaign within the last ten days," he wrote.
He added that a threat analysis published by Microsoft on Aug. 9 said that in June 2024, Mint Sandstorm, run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence unit, had spent a phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign coming from the compromised email of a former senior adviser.
Since then, three U.S. intelligence agencies released joint statements, on Aug. 18 and Sept. 19 to warn of "Iranian malicious cyber actors" who obtained private material from the Trump campaign, which Iran has denied.
Legum, meanwhile, noted that his own emails were "weaponized" by the media and Trump's 2016 campaign after Russian hackers accessed years of emails from the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta.
He said that some of his emails to Podesta, a colleague and friend for 15 years, were published by WikiLeaks and picked up by several media organizations, unlike the Trump campaign emails from "Robert."
"The media frenzy over Podesta's emails was actively encouraged by Trump and his campaign," he wrote. "It was tempting to use this opportunity to turn the tables on the Trump campaign and publish the stolen campaign materials provided to me by Robert. But I believe that is the wrong approach."
Legum said that the organization that got the Trump campaign materials has declined to publish them but has not explained why their approach has been different from what was used against Podesta.