Donald Trump accuses China of election interference based on declassified documents

Former President Donald Trump has accused China of illegally obtaining data on 220 million American voters, releasing declassified documents he claims prove this interference. In a July 16 address, Trump focused on election security, signaling his intent to make it a central issue in the upcoming midterm elections. He asserted that U.S. intelligence agencies intentionally hid the scale of China's alleged actions.

Trump's claims directly contradict a 2021 declassified U.S. intelligence report. That report, prepared under then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, found no evidence that any external actor attempted to alter or did alter any technical aspect of the 2020 presidential election. Trump himself has repeatedly questioned the 2020 election results, alleging fraud without providing credible evidence, and has also raised concerns about mail-in voting and voting machines.

Reuters noted that many of the documents Trump declassified either support the opposite conclusion or are unrelated to U.S. election infrastructure. One CIA document mentioned concerns about Venezuelan elections, while another stated that manipulating vote-counting systems to affect election outcomes would be difficult. A third CIA document described Chinese intelligence actions targeting Joe Biden's campaign, concluding Beijing had no current intention to interfere, though it might later. A spokesperson for the Democratic Party dismissed Trump's revelations as "completely fabricated."