Somehow the story of Iran’s sending opposition research on J.D. Vance to the Biden/Harris presidential campaign blew past me. Is it possible that it didn’t get much play in the American press? Notwithstanding the intense concern about foreign “interference” in our elections that reporters and editors have manifested for the last eight years?
To catch up on the story, I went overseas to the London Times. That paper starts from square one, assuming that its readers haven’t been following the story breathlessly like, for example, readers of The Washington Post:
Iranian hackers sent stolen material from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to senior Democrats.
In another universe, that would be a major story in the New York Times.
Trump’s team revealed last month that they had complained to law enforcement about an alleged hack, which included targeting a “vetting dossier” about his running-mate, JD Vance. A few days later the FBI confirmed that Iran was behind it.
In a joint statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the stolen information had been sent in late June and early July to “individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign”.
So Trump’s campaign put together a dossier on Vance while they were vetting him for the VP slot. The Iranians hacked into Trump’s campaign files and stole various things, including that dossier, which they passed on to the Democrats.
The Biden and Harris campaigns say they didn’t do anything with the information:
There is no indication that Biden’s team responded to the “unsolicited emails”, the statement added. A source from the Democratic campaign told CNN the material had not been used.
They would say that, of course. But it is plausible that there was nothing very problematic in the Trump campaign’s documents, since they did, after all, select Vance to run for VP.
It turns out that a number of press organizations were also sent the same info by the mullahs:
Some high-profile media organisations were also approached with the information but have said they did not respond.
I’m sure they didn’t respond, but did they use the Iranians’ opposition research? I doubt it, only because nothing significantly negative about Vance has come out. But let’s ask a different question: if the Iranians’ information dump had contained some explosive claim against Vance, do you think the Biden and Harris campaigns would have used it? Do you think the press would have made a major story out of it, as they did with the wholly fictitious Steele dossier in 2016 and thereafter?
The question answers itself. I suppose it is useful to have confirmation that Iran’s theocrats are pulling for Kamala, but that was never in doubt. And I don’t think anyone is fooled by the fact that this time, the Democrats’ candidates and reporters didn’t find anything they could use.
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