(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Independent reporter Ken Klippenstein has published information that Iran’s government allegedly stole from Donald Trump’s campaign in a hack—including an internal dossier the campaign put together about JD Vance when considering him to be Trump’s running mate.
Klippenstein’s Twitter was suspended after his decision to publish the dossier, which included some of Vance’s personal info, such as his phone number and address.
Elon Musk, "free speech absolutist", just suspended progressive journalist Ken Klippenstein after he reported on the JD Vance Dossier: pic.twitter.com/rKMZK8ubDl
— SDL (@SocDoneLeft) September 26, 2024
The FBI announced the Iran hack earlier this month, alleging that the hackers sent information to major media outlets as well as the Biden-Harris campaign.
There’s no indication that any of the recipients responded, officials said, and several media organizations who have said they also were approached with stolen material did not publish it. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign called the emails from Iran “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity” that were received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts.
However, Klippenstein said he’s choosing to publish the information because it’s in the public interest to do so.
“The dossier has been offered to me and I’ve decided to publish it because it’s of keen public interest in an election season. It’s a 271-page research paper the Trump campaign prepared to vet now vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been altered, but even if it was, its contents are publicly verifiable. I’ll let it speak for itself,” Klippenstein wrote on Substack.
Unlike the Steele Dossier of 2016, the dossier the Trump campaign wrote on Vance doesn’t contain solacious sexual allegations. Instead, Trump officials compiled what they apparently viewed as policy weaknesses and liabilities Vance may present.
The Trump campaign’s perceived weaknesses against Vance included his opposition to funding the war in Ukraine, his criticism of Black Lives Matter, and his opposition to Trump assassinating Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
“VANCE APPEARS TO HAVE EMBRACED NON-INTERVENTIONISM,” the title of one section of the dossier reads, explaining that Vance supports a “negotiated peace” between Ukraine and Russia.
Other concerns included the fact that Vance once worked with Joe Biden’s chief-of-staff, Ron Klain, at the venture capital firm Revolution LLC.
“So the document is clearly newsworthy, providing Republican Party and conservative doctrine insight into what the Trump campaign perceives to be Vance’s liabilities and weaknesses. Those perceptions provide clues about what a campaign of remarkably little substance might actually think,” Klippenstein concluded.
“While the news media has paraphrased some of the contents of the dossier, what they haven’t done is provide the American people with the underlying document, in the language in which it appeared, so they can decide for themselves what they think. You decide for yourself.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
