Iran offered stolen Trump material to Biden's team - US

US authorities have said that Iranian cyberattackers had offered "stolen, non-public" material from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign to staff for his then White House rival, Joe Biden.

US intelligence and law enforcement agencies said the hackers "sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden's campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former president Trump's campaign".

Mr Biden was at the time the democratic presidential nominee, before dramatically stepping aside in July and endorsing US Vice president Kamala Harris.

The joint statement from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said none of Mr Biden's campaign staff replied to the emails.

In August, the same agencies first attributed the hack to Iran, accusing the Iranians of seeking to influence the 2024 election. Iran denies the allegations.

The US agencies said the Iranian cyberattackers had also attempted to share the information stolen from the Trump campaign with US media organisations. It did not name the outlets.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations vehemently denied the allegations.

"Iran neither has any motive nor intent to interfere in the US election; and, it therefore categorically repudiates such accusations."

The United States goes to the polls on 5 November, with both the Trump and Harris campaigns saying they have been targeted by cyberattacks in recent weeks.

Mr Trump's campaign team said the plot attributed to Iran was "proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden".

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

Mr Trump, who would go on to win that election, was criticised for encouraging the hack.

Ms Harris's campaign said on 13 August that it too had been targeted by foreign hackers, but did not give an indication of which country was believed to be behind the attempt.