Highlights:
President Donald Trump used a prime-time address from the White House on Thursday (16) to renew his claims that China interfered in the 2020 presidential election. He said newly declassified documents exposed serious weaknesses in US election security and argued that China had gained access to large amounts of American voter information.
Trump said China had illegally obtained 220 million US voter files containing names, addresses, and other personal information. He also claimed members of the US intelligence community had downplayed or suppressed the full extent of China's activities. While presenting the documents, Trump described them as evidence of "shocking vulnerabilities."
However, Trump did not provide evidence showing that any votes in the 2020 election were changed, manipulated, or altered. Several of the documents he referenced also appeared to stop short of supporting his broader claims about election interference.
China quickly rejected the accusations.
A spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry dismissed Trump's allegations during a regular press briefing in Beijing.
"China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs and has had no interest in, nor has it ever interfered in, US elections," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, adding Trump's allegations "have long been proven to be sheer nonsense".
The spokesperson also criticized Washington's approach toward Beijing.
"We urge the US side to engage in self-reflection, stop groundlessly smearing China, refrain from using China as an issue in elections, and do more things that are conducive to China-US relations," he added.
An unclassified US intelligence assessment released in 2021 reached a different conclusion from Trump's claims. The report found no indication that any foreign government attempted to or succeeded in changing any technical aspect of the 2020 election. That included voter registrations, ballots, vote counting, and election results.
The assessment was completed under John Ratcliffe, who served as Trump's director of national intelligence at the time and is now CIA director.
The report did say that China had spent years collecting information on American voters, public opinion, candidates, and senior government officials. According to the assessment, those efforts dated back to at least 2008 and were likely intended to help Beijing better understand and predict election outcomes.
People familiar with the matter also said the voter information obtained by China was not classified or secret. Political consultants routinely purchase similar voter files, and the data itself could not be manipulated to change election results.
Despite the intelligence findings, Trump argued that election security remains a major concern. He called on Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, legislation that would introduce stricter voter identification and citizenship requirements. The bill has stalled in the Senate because of strong Democratic opposition.
Trump repeated his long-standing position that US elections need stronger protections. He also claimed his administration had identified more than 275,000 non-citizens registered to vote across four states. However, he did not present evidence showing that any of those individuals had actually cast ballots.
Previous studies have found that voting by non-citizens is extremely rare. In some cases, citizenship verification systems have incorrectly identified naturalized U.S. citizens as non-citizens.
Several of the newly declassified documents also appeared to contradict Trump's broader arguments. One CIA document focused on Venezuela's election rather than the US electoral system. Another assessment stated, "We assess that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a wide enough scale to compromise election results." A separate CIA document discussed Chinese intelligence efforts targeting Joe Biden's campaign while noting that Beijing "does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try to sway the outcome of the election."
Democratic Senator Mark Warner criticized Trump's presentation during the speech.
"Trump's shocking 'bombshells' about China are totally bogus," Warner said. "The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election."
Trump's remarks came as Republicans prepare for the November midterm elections. The president has continued to make election security a central issue, even as critics within his own party have encouraged him to focus more on inflation, energy prices, and other economic concerns.
