In the run-up to Tuesday’s presidential election, Chinese cyber spies targeting cellphones associated with the Trump and Harris campaigns hacked the primary cellphone used by Trump’s lead criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, multiple sources familiar with the matter told the ABC News. .

For more than a year, Blanche has led Trump’s fight against criminal money charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as well as the two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, who brought indictments against Trump for his alleged efforts to cancel. the results of the 2020 presidential election and takes hundreds of classified documents with him after he leaves office.

Sources told ABC News that after first breaking into Blanche’s phone months ago, the hackers, working on behalf of China’s intelligence services, were able to gain access to some of Blanche’s text messages and to capture audio recordings of phone calls.

According to sources, the FBI has determined that Blanche’s communications with family and friends were compromised, and investigators are still trying to determine whether communications with more sensitive contacts were affected.

Sources told ABC News that Blanche may become Trump’s next White House adviser or take a leadership role in law enforcement under a new Trump administration.

China’s sweeping hacking operation made national headlines two weeks ago when the FBI issued a statement saying it was investigating newly identified “malicious activity” by “actors affiliated with the Chinese government” targeting commercial telecommunications infrastructure.

The statement said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency notified victims of the operation. These reportedly included private companies and individuals, who later strengthened their security measures and replaced the compromised cellphones, according to the sources.

ABC News previously reported that Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, were told last month that they and others associated with the campaign were among the victims whose cell phones were targeted. Democrats were also targeted, ABC News said.

The FBI believes the hackers were unable to access encrypted apps on the phones they targeted, but the investigation continues to confirm that and identify other victims, according to sources.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that hackers linked to Chinese intelligence services compromised phone lines used by politicians and senior national security and policy officials in the US government, allowing the hackers to “collect call logs, unencrypted texts and some sound from potentially thousands of Americans and others they interacted with.”

Asked about the latest reports from ABC News, an FBI spokesman declined to comment.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s spokesman, said in a statement: “Make no mistake, foreign adversaries are horrified by President Trump’s strength and resolve. President Trump will stand up to our enemies and defend the United States from any aggression. He will not let anything stop him or get in his way of fighting for the American people and making America great again.”

Blanche oversaw Trump’s defense in the former president’s weeks-long criminal trial in New York, where a jury in May convicted Trump of 34 counts of criminal fraud stemming from his role in falsifying business records to hide cash payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to boost her electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

Sentencing is set for later this month, though it’s unclear if that will still happen after Trump was re-elected to the White House on Tuesday.

After Trump’s sentencing in May, Blanche told The Associated Press that Trump “knows there’s a lot of fighting left and there’s a lot of opportunity to fix this, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”