President Donald Trump's administration has disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence campaigns and placed on leave several election security employees at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency.

Christopher Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies before a Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – Republican senators on Wednesday further perpetuated President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, two days after Democrat Joe Biden’s victory was sealed by the Electoral College. GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the committee chairman and one of Trump’s fiercest defenders, said his goal was to have a bipartisan hearing to examine the election. But he repeated Trump’s assertions without evidence and focused heavily on the claims being made by the president's team. There was no testimony from state or local election officials who conducted extensive checks to ensure the accuracy of the election before certifying the results.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. cybersecurity official who was fired last month by President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday over threatening remarks by a lawyer for the president that prompted a wave of death threats against him. Christopher Krebs says in the suit that he has been “bombarded” with threats since attorney Joseph diGenova appeared on the pro-Trump TV network Newsmax and called for Krebs to be killed. Amid the threats, Krebs, a Republican and Trump appointee, was forced to move out of his home in Virginia for several days and hire private security. He still keeps his children from playing in their front yard out of fear, attorney Jim Walden said. He won bipartisan praise as CISA coordinated federal state and local efforts to defend electoral systems from foreign or domestic interference.

While abrupt, the dismissal Tuesday of Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was not a surprise. Hours before being dismissed, Krebs tweeted out a report citing 59 election security experts saying there is no credible evidence of computer fraud in the 2020 election outcome. Biden campaign spokesman Michael Gwin noted that bipartisan election officials have dismissed Trump’s claims of widespread fraud. Some state election officials and Republicans, suspicious of federal intrusion on their turf, were opposed to the designation. But the Trump administration supported the designation, and, eventually, skeptical state officials welcomed the assistance.

While abrupt, the dismissal of Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, was not a surprise. Hours before being dismissed, Krebs tweeted out a report citing 59 election security experts saying there is no credible evidence of computer fraud in the 2020 election outcome. Biden campaign spokesman Michael Gwin noted that bipartisan election officials have dismissed Trump’s claims of widespread fraud. Some state election officials and Republicans, suspicious of federal intrusion on their turf, were opposed to the designation. But the Trump administration supported the designation, and, eventually, skeptical state officials welcomed the assistance.

In the race to 270 electoral votes, Biden has 236, while Trump has 213. ___2:40 a.m.President Donald Trump is vowing to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the inconclusive election. Nebraska, one of two states that divides its electoral votes, has five total electoral votes up for grabs. The Republican nominee on Wednesday was awarded six electoral votes from Iowa and three electoral votes from Montana. Biden nets 74 electoral votes for the three Western states, while Trump takes four electoral votes from Idaho.

(AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)WASHINGTON – Earlier this month, President Donald Trump was predicting on Twitter that this election would be “the most corrupt” in American history. Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, closed an online conference with a warning about “bad guys, whoever they are,” trying to “sow chaos, sow doubt” about the integrity of the U.S. election. “I have confidence that your vote is secure, that state and local election officials across this country are working day in and day out, 24/7, that the 2020 election is as secure as possible,” Krebs said. Some state election officials and Republicans, suspicious of federal intrusion on their turf, were opposed to the designation. But the Trump administration supported the designation, and, eventually, skeptical state officials welcomed the assistance.

BOSTON – U.S. officials accused Iran on Wednesday of being behind a flurry of emails sent to Democratic voters in multiple battleground states that appeared to be aimed at intimidating them into voting for President Donald Trump. Iran sent spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters and sow unrest and also distributed a video that falsely suggested voters could cast fraudulent ballots from overseas, Ratcliffe said. Wray and Ratcliffe did not describe the emails, but officials familiar with the matter said the U.S. has linked Tehran to messages sent to Democratic voters in at least four states, including battleground locations like Pennsylvania and Florida. Though Democratic voters were targeted, Ratcliffe said the spoofed emails were intended to harm Trump, though he did not elaborate how. The operation represented something of a departure in cyber-ops for Iran, which sought for the first time on record to undermine voter confidence.