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FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., said an alleged Iranian state actor recently targeted him with a phishing scheme disguised as a television interview request, in what he described as an apparent effort to access his personal email account.
“A skilled impersonator created something appearing just like Newsmax to attempt to do an interview with me,” Fine told Fox News Digital in an interview, explaining that his staffer began interacting with the message in email, as the office normally does, before realizing “the links didn’t work.”
The phishing scheme was allegedly designed to gain access to his personal Google account, Fine explained.
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Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., leaves the U.S. Capitol after the last votes of the week on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
The incident comes after President Donald Trump ordered strikes on Iran in February, sparking an ongoing battle that the president has said will end in a matter of weeks as tensions continue flaring. The Trump administration argued Iran’s nuclear program and missile capabilities posed an urgent threat ahead of the U.S. and Israel launching joint strikes.
Fine said he did not “think the timing was coincidental” and that the alleged cyberattack occurred “literally the day after combat operations began.” The episode underscores heightened concern among U.S. intelligence officials about potential cyber and physical threats tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict, particularly against high-profile political figures.
The FBI confirmed earlier in March that an Iran-linked hacker group known as the “Handala Hack Team” breached Director Kash Patel’s personal email account. A bureau spokesperson said in a statement at the time that while the compromised information was “historical in nature” and contained no government data, the FBI had taken all “necessary steps to…
