Marco Rubio: Russians Tried to Hack Me, Too

When it comes to hacking American politicians, the Russians have, apparently, been some awfully busy beavers.

Now, as reported by a wide variety of media outlets, including Western Journalism, U.S. Senator and former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is claiming that he was the victim of at least two different hacking attempts by Russia.

Speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Rubio told the assembled that his campaign was the target of hacking efforts last summer, and that former members of his campaign staff were again subject to a Russian hacking attempt just last week.

���Former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to the internal information of my presidential campaign were targeted by IP addresses with an unknown location within Russia,��� said Rubio. ���That effort was unsuccessful.���

According to the senator, that effort came following his announcement last July that he would be running for re-election.

���I would also inform the committee within the last 24 hours, at 10:45 a.m. yesterday, a second attempt was made, again, against former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to our internal information ��� again targeted from an IP address from an unknown location in Russia,��� Rubio said. ���And that effort was also unsuccessful.���

For his part, the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., described a large and comprehensive effort on the part of Russia to exert influence over last year���s U.S. presidential election.

���There were upwards of 1,000 paid Internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia, in effect, taking over series of computers, which is then called a ���botnet,������ Warner said.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large