Politico reports:

The intelligence community has seen no evidence that foreign powers intend to manipulate mail-in voting in the 2020 election, senior Trump administration officials said Wednesday, undercutting a claim by President Donald Trump that such fraud “will be the scandal of our times.”

“We have no information or intelligence that any nation-state threat actor is engaging in any activity to undermine the mail-in vote or ballots,” said a top official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who joined other senior intel community officials from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI to brief media on the status of foreign election threats. They spoke with reporters on condition they not be named.

Trump has repeatedly and groundlessly asserted that mail-in ballots will be subject to widespread fraud, driving doubts about the security of the election as a slew of states have ramped up mail-in voting access amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Intelligence community leaders and lawmakers of both parties have pleaded with political leaders to refrain from casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election, which they’ve emphasized could be amplified by foreign adversaries like Russia who seek to cast doubts about the legitimacy of American institutions. [Continue reading…]