President Trump on Friday disputed that Iran was behind a cyberattack on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota, as U.S. and state investigators have said is most likely the case, instead blaming the state and its Democratic governor, Tim Walz, without evidence.
Mr. Walz dismissed the accusation in a social media post soon after.
The New York Times reported Thursday that U.S. and Minnesota state officials believed Iran was likely responsible for the cyberattacks on water systems. The F.B.I. said late Thursday the hackers had targeted water facilities in at least seven states.
Mr. Trump dismissed that assessment in a freewheeling cabinet meeting on Friday, saying: “I don’t think so. I think Minnesota is behind it,” adding, “I think the governor’s behind it. I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack.”
The president’s baseless claim, contradicted by investigators’ statements that other states had been targeted and their water systems were “degraded” by the attack, appeared aimed at downplaying the threat of the increasingly unpopular war with Iran inside America’s borders. Mr. Trump instead shifted blame to Mr. Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate in 2024, and his state government, continuing a pattern of trying to punish Minnesota and its Democratic leadership, particularly over the issue of immigration.
“Trump knows exactly who is responsible for this attack, and knows that other states were hit too,” Mr. Walz said on social media, adding, “This is what modern warfare looks like, and it further illustrates there’s no plan to win a war with Iran.”
Officials had cautioned in their preliminary assessments that they had not definitively determined that Iran was responsible for the attack and that their conclusions could change as the authorities collected more data — though on Friday some federal and state officials familiar with the matter said nothing had surfaced to challenge the prevailing view. The hacking spree, if confirmed to be the handiwork of Tehran, would amount to one of the most significant cyberattacks of the war and one of the most serious efforts to compromise U.S. water systems on record.
The officials also warned that the hackers could be attempting to pose as being based in Iran in an effort to ratchet up tensions between the two countries, though former intelligence officials said such a situation was unlikely.
Katie Rogers and Dustin Volz contributed reporting.
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