Senate Intel leaders Rubio, Warner issue joint statement on foreign threat to US elections

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The top two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a new warning about foreign efforts to influence American elections in a joint statement Wednesday night, just as the intelligence community confirmed Russian and Iranian efforts.

“Our adversaries abroad seek to sow chaos and undermine voters’ belief in our democratic institutions, including the election systems and infrastructure that we rely on to record and properly report expressions of the voters’ will,” acting Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said. “They may seek to target those systems, or simply leave the impression that they have altered or manipulated those systems, in order to undermine their credibility and our confidence in them.”

DNI RATCLIFFE SAYS IRAN, RUSSIA ATTEMPTING TO INTERFERE WITH 2020 ELECTION

They released the statement shortly before Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe announced that federal investigators had found both Russian and Iran attempting to influence the 2020 elections during a Wednesday night FBI news conference.

“As we enter the last weeks before the election, we urge every American – including members of the media – to be cautious about believing or spreading unverified, sensational claims related to votes and voting,” the senators continued. “State and local election officials are in regular contact with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals, and they are all working around the clock to ensure that Election 2020 is safe, secure and free from outside interference.”

Ratcliffe said that investigators caught Iran distributing a video with false information about fraudulent ballots and that Russia had obtained some voter information.

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“We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump,” Ratcliffe said. “You may have seen some reporting on this in the last 24 hours or you may have even been one of the recipients of those emails.”

The news conference was held as Democratic voters in at least four battleground states, including Florida and Pennsylvania, received threatening emails, falsely claiming to be from the far-right group Proud Boys, that warned “we will come after you” if the recipients didn’t vote for President Donald Trump. They appeared to have used email addresses obtained from state voter registration lists -- which include party affiliations, home addresses and contact information.

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FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau would take action to protect U.S. elections integrity and that citizens should be "confident" that their votes count.

"We are not going to let our guard down," he said.

Fox News’ Sam Dorman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.