Palm Beach, Florida - Donald Trump's campaign said Saturday it had been hacked, blaming "foreign sources" for distributing internal communications and a dossier on running mate J.D. Vance.

Trump's campaign implied Iran was behind the leak as news outlet Politico reported it had received emails with the campaign material from a source who refused to identify themselves.

"These documents were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process," Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Cheung cited a report from Microsoft this week that said Iranian hackers "sent a spear phishing email in June to a high-ranking official on a presidential campaign."

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The materials received by Politico included research on vetting Vance, Trump's vice presidential pick.

Trump responded to the incident on his Truth Social platform, writing: "We were just informed by Microsoft Corporation that one of our many websites was hacked by the Iranian Government - Never a nice thing to do!"

He added: "They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn't be doing anything of this nature."

In 2016, a hack of Democratic National Committee emails – blamed on Russia – exposed internal party communications, including about candidate Hillary Clinton.

Trump, who would go on to win the election, eagerly encouraged the hack at the time, at one point saying: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."