Months before former President Donald Trump spread his lies about voter fraud in the 2020 election, one of his closest allies in the Department of Homeland Security tried to make it a national security issue. Ken Cuccinelli, who held the department’s No. 2 spot, asked the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis to investigate possible voter fraud in the 2020 election, later adding a specific focus on mail-in voting, Politico reports. The issue caught some officials off guard, as looking into whether ballots could be tampered with was not part of their previous election-related work. It led to a number of internal complaints in September and October. “What makes this inappropriate is that the underlying activity is a fantasy,” said Ben Wittes, a Brookings fellow who focuses on U.S. intelligence agencies. “And there are no circumstances in which the intelligence community should be tasked to collect on fantasies.”