our colleagues at the state and treasury departments are announcing parallel actions in both of these matters unfortunately we know that Russia is not the only foreign power seeking to interfere in our elections as us intelligence Community noted two weeks ago we have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle that includes recently reported activities by Iran to compromise former president Trump's campaign and to avoid an election outcome that it regards as against its interests those recently reported Iranian activities also include efforts to obtain access to individuals who themselves have access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties the Justice Department's message is clear we have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our demograph our democratic system of government we will be relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran as well as China or any other foreign malign actor to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy