Chinese spies hacked the cellphone used by Donald Trump‘s lead criminal defense attorney, accessing his text messages and recorded calls, a new report has claimed.
Sources told ABC News that the cybercriminals infiltrated Todd Blanche’s device months before the election.
It may this have given hackers access to exchanges with the new president-elect.
Blanche is rumored to be up for the next White House counsel or could take a senior law enforcement position.
The FBI knows the hack but believes the cybercriminals did not infiltrate encrypted applications, the report claimed.
DailyMail.com contacted the FBI for clarification, which responded with: ‘We do not have a comment.’
The cybercriminals, working on behalf of China‘s intelligence services, also targeted devices by the Trump and Kalama Harris campaigns just two weeks before the November election.
The Justice Department in September charged also Iranian cyber-spies with hacking Trump’s campaign in an effort to interfere in the election.
A new report claimed that Todd Blanche’s cellphone was hacked months ago by Chinese cybercriminals. The FBI refused to comment on the matter
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump, told ABC News: ‘Make no mistake, foreign adversaries are terrified of the strength and resolve of President Trump.
‘President Trump will stand up against our enemies and defend the United States from any and all aggression.
‘He will let nothing stop him or get in his way to fight for the American people and to Make America Great Again.’
Blanche was the lead lawyer defending Trump in the hush money case, which resulted in the elect-president being found guilty by a jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York.
Blanche came under fire for losing what some called a winnable trial.
Veteran lawyers argued District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case had weaknesses – despite 200 pieces of evidence and weeks of witness testimony.
But Blanche failed to exploit them, confusing the jury by fighting every aspect of the indictment and refusing to offer the option of a lesser charge.
Trump covered up $130,000 in payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide extramarital affairs and now faces the unlikely possibility of jail time.
The hack of Blanche’s device follows an attack on phones used Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Harris, which was confirmed by Verizon on October 25.
‘Along with federal law enforcement, industry peers and third-party cyber experts, we are working to confirm, assess and remediate any potential impact,’ Verizon shared in a statement to the New York Times.
Blanchard is the criminal defense attorney of President-elect Donald Trump. He was the lead lawyer defending Trump in the hush money case
Trump campaign officials were then that the hackers could still be hiding inside Verizon’s systems, but if they are attempting to steal data is unknown.
While the FBI did not officially confirm that Trump and Vance were victimized, the bureau did note it was zeroing in on Chinese state actors as culprits.
‘The FBI identified specific malicious activity,’ the bureau wrote in a press release, ‘unauthorized access to commercial telecommunications infrastructure by actors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.’
‘Agencies across the US Government are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector,’ the FBI said.
US officials believe the presidential campaigns were among many targets of a larger cyberespionage operation launched by China, sources told the Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear what information China may have hoped to glean, though Beijing has for years engaged in vast hacking campaigns aimed at collecting the private data of Americans and government workers.
China was believed by US intelligence officials to have a neutral stance in the race.
However, the nation had instead focused on down-ballot races, targeting candidates from both parties based on their stance on issues of key importance to Beijing, including support for Taiwanese independence.
