FBI monitoring for foreign meddling in elections

FBI Director James Comey says his agency is watching out for potential interference in U.S. elections by a foreign nation.

“It is something we take very, very seriously,” Comey said Thursday during a panel in Washington, according to USA Today. “[We’re working] very hard to understand whether that is going on.”

{mosads}Comey did not specify which nations he might be referring to during a forum on national intelligence.

But U.S. security experts have suggested Russia was behind recent cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other Democratic organizations, including Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Reports emerged last month hackers may have broken into voter databases in Arizona and Illinois, prompting the FBI to investigate the possible breach.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has asked the FBI to probe the danger Russia presents the U.S. election system.

“I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify election records,” he wrote in an Aug. 30 letter to Comey.

“The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War and it is critical for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use every resource available to investigate this matter thoroughly and in a timely fashion.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week denied the Kremlin had any role in the DNC hack.

“Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “The important thing is the content was given to the public. But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level, Russia has never done this.”