„There‘s no higher concern that we have than maintaining the free and fair elections that are the cornerstone of our democracy,“ O‘Brien said. „And look, we know that there are people overseas, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians, others who would like to interfere with our democracy. And we‘re going to fight against that.“

The warning from the national security adviser to foreign governments less than 100 days before the November election comes after the intelligence community issued its first public assessment Friday on the candidate preferences of some foreign actors.