Marco Rubio says down-ballot candidates could be ultimate victims of foreign election interference

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is speaking out in the wake of an Iranian hack of Donald Trump’s campaign that saw a research document on him become national news.

Florida’s senior Senator says the real impact of such foreign depredations could be in races where the candidates don’t have the platform to fight back.

“I think some of these lower ballot races are the ones that are particularly more susceptible, because if you’re running for Congress or Senate somewhere, let’s say a congressional seat, and someone dumped something like this on you, it’s much harder to get the truth out there in time for it to be cleared up. There just isn’t going to be as much interest, and there isn’t going to be as much people covering it,” the Senator said on “Face the Nation.”

The Iranian email came from someone on America Online who identified himself as “Robert,” and went to reporters who by and large chose not to report the revelations.

But the Senator thinks it’s only a matter of time until reporters go further to push purloined intel.

“Here’s what we’re going to see one day. It’s not just that they’re going to take it and give it to a campaign or the media. They’re going to give it to somebody, some online journalists, somebody who will run with that stuff and will begin to report on it, or maybe even alter it,” Rubio added.

“For example, make up a fake email where it looks like a real email, maybe it is a real email, but they alter a few words in it and put it out there. And by the time you put out that fire, it’s done damage.”

Because of the lack of reportage on these down-ballot races, Rubio thinks “it’s going to be a lot harder for some candidate to prove that that email is fake.”

“By the time they do,” the Senator warns, “the election may be over.”