Soon We'll All See Trump's Investigation Into The Weirdo Running Mate
The Trump campaign understands how hostile foreign players can target campaigns with hacking and phishing expeditions. It’s how they “won” in 2016— except that year it was the Russians targeting Hillary’s campaign in order to help Trump. the FBI and Microsoft warned both parties that the North Koreans and Iranians were up to something nefarious and to stay alert. Apparently, the Trump campaign wasn’t all that alert.
Apparently, the Trump campaign didn’t take the warnings to heart and they were the victims of a phishing expedition after being hacked. From the reports I’ve seen, it appears that Iranian hackers may have broken into the account of a top Trump campaign official. This seems to have led to a spear phishing attack— sending a deceptive email, which appeared to come from a trusted source (the hacked emai), to another high-ranking official. The email contained a link that would have directed traffic through a domain controlled by the hackers, a classic phishing tactic. And voilà— they got their hands on the 271-page dossier of JD Vance’s “Vulnerabilities,” the potential opposition research book— which hasn’t been leaked to the public yet and which Trump probably never bothered to read. They also sent part of the research on Marco Rubio, a former gay-for-pay hustler... so that will make for some fun reading when it leaks.
Late yesterday afternoon, Owen Lavine reported that Politico was sent the document 3 weeks ago. In fact, Politico “said that it has been receiving anonymous emails containing internal communications from the Trump campaign. The campaign acknowledged the authenticity of the communications on Saturday, accusing ‘foreign sources hostile to the United States,’ for leaking them… Politico reported that on July 22 it began receiving emails from an AOL account only identified by the moniker ‘Robert’ that contained internal communications from the Trump campaign.”
One email contained a 271-page report on Vance entitled “POTENTIAL VULNERABILITIES.” Robert told Politico they had a “variety of documents from [Trump’s] legal and court documents to internal campaign discussions,” and when pressed for how they obtained them, Robert responded, “I suggest you don’t be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them.”
This is by no means a first for Trump. In 2020, a hacker hacked his Twitter account by guessing his password, ‘maga2020!’
But… a top GOP strategist, Matthew Dowd said, he doesn’t “believe anything the Trump campaign says. They lie like they [breathe]. My sense is this came from a disgruntled staffer not some mythic foreign source.”
One thing that could prove extremely damaging to the Trump campaign that they’re not hiding from anyone is Trump’s much ballyhooed boast that he intends to deport as many as 20 million undocumented residents, a top MAGA priority. But not necessarily something even all Republicans feel comfortable with.
Stephen Groves reported for the AP that when Trump was “pressed for specifics on his plan in an interview with Time Magazine this year, [he] suggested he would use the National Guard, and possibly even the military, to target between 15 million and 20 million people— though the government estimated in 2022 there were 11 million migrants living in the U.S. without permanent legal permission.
His plans have raised the stakes of this year’s election beyond fortifying the southern border, a longtime conservative priority, to the question of whether America should make a fundamental change in its approach to immigration.
After the southern border saw a historic number of crossings during the Biden administration, Democrats have also moved rightward on the issue, often leading with promises of border security before talking about relief for the immigrants who are already in the country.
And as the November election approaches, both parties are trying to reach voters like [Texas Republican Lauren] Peña, 33. Latino voters could be pivotal in many swing states.
Trump won 35% of Hispanic voters in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, and support for stronger border enforcement measures has grown among Hispanic voters. But an AP analysis of two consecutive polls conducted in June by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that about half of Hispanic Americans have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Trump.
…GOP lawmakers have largely embraced Trump’s plans. “It’s needed,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), said at a July interview at the conservative Hudson Institute.
Some, however, have shown tacit skepticism by suggesting more modest goals.
Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, pointed to over 1 million people who have already received a final order of removal from an immigration judge and said, “There’s a difference between those that are in the process right now and those that are finished with the process.”
Lankford, who negotiated a bipartisan border package that Trump helped defeat earlier this year, added that it would be a “huge” task both logistically and financially just to target that group.
Other Republicans, including Floridians Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, suggested Trump in the White House would prioritize migrants with criminal backgrounds.
Indeed, Trump entered office in 2016 with similar promises of mass deportation but only succeeded in deporting about 1.5 million people.
This time, though, there’s a plan.
Trump has worked closely with Stephen Miller, a former top aide who is expected to take a senior role in the White House if Trump wins. Miller describes a Trump administration that will work with “utter determination” to accomplish two goals: “Seal the border. Deport all the illegals.”
To accomplish that, Trump would revive travel bans from countries deemed undesirable, such as majority-Muslim countries. He would launch a sweeping operation by deputizing the National Guard to round up immigrants, hold them in massive camps and put them on deportation flights before they could make legal appeals.
Beyond that, Trump has also pledged to end birthright citizenship— a 125-year-old right in the U.S. And several of his top advisers have laid out a sweeping policy vision through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that would choke off other forms of legal migration.
The Trump administration, under those plans, could also grind to a halt temporary programs for over 1 million migrants, including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Ukrainians and Afghans who fled recent conflicts as well as others who receive temporary protection due to unrest in their home country.
The policies would have far-reaching disruptions in major industries like housing and agriculture, including in key battleground states.
“If the 75,000-plus immigrants who perform the hardest of work in Wisconsin’s dairy and agriculture were gone tomorrow, the state economy would tank,” said Jorge Franco, the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican who has pushed legislation that would allow a path to citizenship for longtime residents, argued that large-scale deportations were now necessary because of recent surges in border crossings under President Joe Biden. But she also hoped that Trump could see the difference between recent arrivals and longtime residents.
“There is a group of congresspeople that will make sure that the new administration understands it because there’s another aspect: the business community,” she said. “The developers in construction… and the farmers, what are they going to say? They need hands.”
Meanwhile, Democrats feel that Trump’s threats are now motivating Latino voters.
“The mass deportation put a lot of people on high alert,” said María Teresa Kumar, the CEO of Voto Latino, a leading voter registration organization that is backing Democrat Kamala Harris.
Like many other groups aligned with Harris, Voto Latino has seen an outpouring of interest since she rose to the top of the Democratic ticket. Kumar said the organization has registered nearly 36,000 voters in the weeks since Biden left the race— almost matching its tally from the first six months of the year.
In a heavily Latino House district on the southern tip of Texas, Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez said voters want to see better management of the border, but at the same time, many also have friends or family members who don’t have their immigration documentation in order.
“Much more could be done, in terms of good policy, that would help control surges at the border,” Gonzalez said. “But mass deportation, it just gives people heartburn.”
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