After the Justice Department unsealed charges last month in an Iran-linked hacking operation against Donald Trump’s campaign, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland offered a window into one department motivation: Calling out the threat publicly.
Federal authorities populated the 37-page indictment with granular details on the wide-ranging operation — hacking tactics, specific dates and even photos of the three defendants — as they alleged the actions were part of Iran’s ongoing efforts to erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process.
“These kind of actions have several purposes,” Garland said of the indictment. “One, and maybe the most significant, is alerting the American people to these kinds of false personas, these kind of hacking operations, these kinds of production of propaganda.”
