US President Donald Trump on Thursday reignited the debate over the 2020 presidential election, alleging that China carried out “the largest compromise of election data in history” by acquiring 220 million American voter files.He announced the declassification of intelligence documents that he claimed showed Chinese interference in US elections, despite previous assessments by America’s intelligence community finding no evidence that Beijing altered the outcome of the 2020 vote.Speaking in a primetime address from the White House, Trump said his administration was releasing classified material related to the 2020 and 2018 elections, arguing that Americans deserved “fair and honest elections.”“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” Trump said.“Yet concealing China’s meddling was only the beginning. The third set of documents we are releasing proves that for many years, Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure, including electronic voting machines and ballot-counting systems. They are vulnerable, and they are easily compromised,” Trump said.Also read: China charms world, now more popular than US; Xi Jinping tops Donald Trump on trust: ReportHe alleged that, beginning in 2020, China “carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files.”“That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening,” he said.He described the alleged breach as “an unprecedented election security nightmare” and claimed that “those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden,” saying neither he nor Congress had been informed.“This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China signed a data exploitation unit specifically for this new project. Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the deep state, a very, very famous group of people in many cases in our intelligence agency, work to actively suppress and downplay information about the extent of China’s sinister election meddling, covering it up from both the President and the American people as nobody thought was possible,” he added.Trump, however, did not explain how China allegedly obtained the data. Much of the voter registration information he referred to is publicly available under US election laws. The president said his administration was notifying states whose election data may have been compromised.“My administration is in the process of notifying the states whose election data was compromised by the People’s Republic of China and many others,” he said.He added that Homeland Security would work with state governments to strengthen election systems before the 2026 midterm elections.“We’re also committing to be working with those states and local jurisdictions to help them fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections,” Trump said.He also announced that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin would hold a briefing on cyber vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems and said he had directed the department to identify and remove non-citizens from voter rolls, Reuters reported.Trump used the address to renew his push for stricter voter identification laws, saying the system currently “falls catastrophically short” of ensuring election integrity.The president’s claims, however, contradict findings by the US intelligence community. An unclassified assessment released in 2021 concluded there was no indication that any foreign government altered voter registrations, ballots, vote tabulation or election results during the 2020 presidential election.That assessment was prepared under then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who now serves as CIA director in Trump’s administration.Several of the documents released by the White House on Thursday also appeared to undercut Trump’s claims. One intelligence document stated that vote tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a scale large enough to change election outcomes. Another concluded that while China monitored the election, Beijing did not intend to interfere in the vote.Senator Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, rejected the allegations, saying, “The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”Ahead of Trump’s address, China’s embassy in Washington also rejected the allegations. “China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in other’s internal affairs,” the embassy said in a statement.“The US election is an internal matter of the US. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US.”Trump’s speech comes as Republicans prepare for the 2026 midterm elections. While the president framed the issue as one of election security, critics accused him of reviving long-discredited claims about the 2020 election, which numerous court rulings, recounts and audits found was conducted fairly.
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