Just nine months away from the U.S. general election, reporting published Friday by CNN suggests the federal government is poorly prepared to respond to “nightmare scenarios,” from violence at the polls to disinformation created with artificial intelligence. One U.S. official familiar with a previously unreported meeting at the White House Situation Room in December told CNN’s Sean Lyngaas that in terms of a coordinated federal response to an election-related threat, “we’re all f—king tied up in knots.” Citing four unnamed sources, Lyngaas reported that leaders from the Central Intelligence Ag…