Intelligence community, FBI issue warning on Iranian election interference

The U.S. intelligence community and FBI have issued a joint statement again warning Iran seeks to "stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions" during this election season.  

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued the joint statement on Monday.

"Iran seeks to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions," the statement reads. "Iran has furthermore demonstrated a longstanding interest in exploiting societal tensions through various means," according to the statement.

The agencies accuse Iran of using "cyber operations to attempt to gain access to sensitive information related to U.S. elections."

"We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns," the agencies stated.

Examples of election interference include the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, which the intelligence community attributes to Iran. 

The intelligence community "is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties."

The agencies pledged that they "will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns."