Marco Rubio dossier leaked by reporter who published details on JD Vance

A reporter who leaked the alleged vetting process of Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee JD Vance has published a similar dossier for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein published the 551-page document on his Substack page that aims to detail whether Rubio would be a suitable candidate for the 2024 Republican vice presidential nomination.

Klippenstein was temporarily suspended from X, formerly Twitter, in September after he leaked the vetting process for Vance, which was allegedly stolen by Iranian hackers. The social media platform later told Klippenstein that his account had been suspended for violating its policy on “publishing private information,” telling him in an email that “we understand that this incident may have been a mistake on your part.” was,” said the journalist.

The Florida senator is reported to be named Trump's secretary of state in the president-elect's next cabinet. The alleged vetting process details Rubio's previous scrutiny of the former president's foreign policy and “stance” toward Russia.

“Let’s see if I get banned again,” Klippenstein posted on X on Tuesday while sharing the Rubio dossier.

Newsweek emailed Trump's transition team, Rubio's office and X for comment.

Klippenstein said the Rubio dossier was provided to him by the same Iranian source that gave him the Vance document. At least three news organizations – Politico, The New York TimesAnd The Washington Post– are said to have received the Vance review process document but refused to report it.

In August, Matt Murray, editor-in-chief of The Washington Postsaid all news organizations that were sent the Vance dossier “took a deep breath and paused” to consider whether it was newsworthy. Murray said The post ultimately decided that the document was not “fresh or new enough” to publish.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Politico, told The Associated Press that his editors believed that “the questions surrounding the origins of the documents and how we came to know them were more newsworthy than the material contained in those documents.” “

Klippenstein said the Rubio document was also offered to several mainstream media outlets, but they did not publish it because they were “complying with the U.S. government's warnings that the American people should not see it because the document came from Iran.” “.

Just like the Vance dossier, Rubio's vetting process includes details such as voting history and employment and educational background.

The document contains several publicly available examples of how Rubio criticized Trump during the senator's 2016 run for the White House, including suggesting that Trump would “dismantle and divide the Republican Party and the conservative movement.”

The review document further describes that Rubio is now a staunch supporter of Trump, telling NBC News in March 2024 that it would be an “honor” to serve as his vice president.

“The Rubio dossier, which is said to be too dangerous to release, amounts to an overview and analysis of Rubio’s voting record and public statements,” Klippenstein said. “It’s not the Steele dossier; there are no salacious details or really anything that cannot be publicly verified.”

The largely discredited Steele dossier consisted of opposition research commissioned by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign in 2016 from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. It was released in January 2017 after the election and contained unconfirmed intelligence reports about Trump's relationship with Trump Russia.

Klippenstein criticized media outlets that criticized him for publishing the Vance document in his piece on the Rubio dossier.

“When I published the JD Vance dossier – provided to me by the same Iranian government-affiliated source known as 'Robert' – I was accused of being an impostor,” Klippenstein wrote.

“When they told it, I had taken the 'bait,' a silly word for it, because I was fully aware and transparent that it was part of a hack-and-leak influence operation by the Iranian government (same thing, by the way, (also applies to the Rubio dossier).

“These news organizations cannot accept that someone simply disagrees with their assumption that obviously newsworthy material should be withheld from the public simply because it comes from unsavory characters doing unsavory things,” he added.

The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement in September that “malicious cyber actors” from Iran sent unsolicited emails to people who were associated with Associated with President Joe Biden's campaign, released in late June and early July and allegedly containing non-public information from Trump's campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris' 2024 campaign team, which included several people who worked on Biden's re-election bid, denied opening or reading the emails sent to them from Iran.

Iran dismissed allegations that it hacked Trump's campaign as “unfounded and baseless.”

Three members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have since been accused of hacking Trump's presidential campaign and leaking stolen information to the media.

On November 8, the Justice Department charged an Afghan national in connection with an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump before Election Day.