Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was among the prominent political figures that Iranian hackers sought to impersonate as part of their efforts to target people associated with former President Donald Trump, according to court documents and law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.
US federal prosecutors on Friday unsealed criminal charges against three Iranian government-linked hackers in connection with a hacking operation aimed at Trump.
The three are accused of a multi-year hacking effort aimed at current and former US officials and journalists, including the breach of the Trump campaign this summer, according to an indictment unsealed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri and Yasar (Yaser) Balaghi are accused of aggravated identity theft and wire fraud for their hacking efforts on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Between June and August, the hackers used access to a Trump campaign official’s personal email account to steal “debate preparation” material and information on potential vice presidential candidates, according to the indictment. The leak of some of that material to US media outlets was part of an Iranian effort to stoke discord during the election, the Justice Department alleged.
“The defendants’ own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 US presidential election,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters Friday.
“These authoritarian regimes, which violate the human rights of their own citizens do not get a say in our country’s democratic process,” Garland said.
The indictment doesn’t identify Ginni Thomas by name, but it states that between April and May 2024, the hackers used the persona set up in the name of the justice’s spouse to send spearphishing emails to a former homeland security adviser to a former US president, among other targets.
The hackers had set up a fake email account in Ginni Thomas’ name in April 2020, according to the indictment and law enforcement officials, but it wasn’t until four years later that they used that account in their efforts.
None of the alleged hackers have been arrested
The aggressive soliciting of the stolen information — which included a vetting file on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — to media outlets immediately drew comparisons to 2016, when Russian intelligence officers used WikiLeaks to launder emails stolen from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
None of the alleged Iranian hackers have been arrested. The indictment is one of several US government efforts to blunt the impact of Iranian and Russian influence operations on the November presidential election by publicly exposing the activity.
The indictment includes photos of an office building in Tehran affiliated with at least one of the alleged hackers, along with a photo of Balaghi smiling with computers behind him.