While it featured the FBI and Justice Department logos, the announcement was written in broken English and without capitalizations, according to screenshots posted on Tuesday evening.
“[We] have evidence that completely discredits mr trump as president,” the notice said, “proving his criminal involvment [sic] and coorperation [sic] with foreign actors manipulating the 2020 election.”
Trump's Campaign website hacked/defaced by someone who is sick of the "fake news spreaded daily" by the president. pic.twitter.com/035neUv7kc
— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) October 27, 2020
It also claimed that “most internal and secret conversations strictly classified information is exposed proving that the trump-gov [sic] is involved in the origin of the corona virus.”
The hackers left a messaging blaming Trump for the origin of COVID
This has been a key message of Chinese disinformation all year
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 27, 2020
The notice appeared on multiple pages of the donaldjtrump.com site. Whoever was behind it posted two links to accounts of the cryptocurrency Monero, offering the public to pay them to share the alleged secret information, or not.
Lmao that's such an easy scam to raise money.
— Karl Thorburn (@KarlThorburn) October 27, 2020
It was not up for long, however, as the site was quickly taken offline. As of 23:30 GMT, it was operational again, with no trace of the scam.
The attack on the campaign website comes amid a series of alternative media stories accusing Trump’s rival Joe Biden of being involved in shady business arrangements in China spearheaded by his son Hunter. Mainstream media outlets have denounced the story as “Russian disinformation,” even though the US director of national intelligence said there was no evidence that was the case.
Last Monday, DNI John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Chris Wray accused Iran of sending fake emails posing as ‘Proud Boys’ and threatening Democrats in Alaska and Florida, and said Tehran had accessed some US voter information.