U.S. President Donald Trump accused China in a speech of carrying out what he described as the largest compromise of American election data in history. In a live address from the White House, the president claimed that Chinese authorities accessed information on around 220 million American voters and simultaneously accused the American intelligence apparatus of concealing the information.
At the same time, the White House launched a new website on election integrity where a large number of previously classified documents, intelligence assessments, and investigations were published. According to the White House, the material shows that China collected American voter records over several years and that foreign adversaries have had the opportunity to target American election infrastructure.
In his speech, Trump said that the Chinese data collection poses “an unprecedented security threat to our elections” and claimed that parts of the U.S. intelligence community withheld the information from both him and the public during his first term.
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He also presented the released documents as evidence that electronic voting systems and databases have long been vulnerable to attacks from foreign powers.
At the same time, Trump called on Congress to implement comprehensive reforms of the American election system, including stricter rules for voter registration and requirements to prove American citizenship at registration.
China Rejects the Allegations
The Chinese embassy in Washington quickly denied the president’s claims.
“China has never and will never interfere in the U.S. presidential election,” said a spokesperson, according to Reuters.
Trump did not present any new evidence that China manipulated the actual vote count or election results. The White House instead focused on reports that Chinese actors have accessed large amounts of American voter data and on documents that, according to the administration, show how vulnerable U.S. election systems are.
Earlier Intelligence Reached Different Conclusions
The president’s statement stands in contrast to earlier public assessments from the American intelligence community. A declassified analysis from 2021 concluded that there were no indications that any foreign power managed to alter technical parts of the 2020 presidential election, such as voter registers, ballots, vote counting, or election results.
The assessment was prepared under Trump’s then-national intelligence director, John Ratcliffe, who now heads the CIA.
At the same time, CBS News has reported that earlier declassified documents do show that Chinese intelligence analyzed American voter rolls prior to the 2020 election but that these documents did not determine that China attempted to manipulate the election process itself or the vote count.
Divides the U.S.
The speech has already sparked an intense debate in the U.S. Republicans have welcomed the release of the documents and argue that they demonstrate the need for increased security measures around elections. Critics, including several former intelligence chiefs and Democratic politicians, argue that Trump is reviving claims about the 2020 presidential election despite previous reviews and audits finding no evidence that foreign actors changed the election result.
The speech was delivered less than four months before the midterm elections to Congress and is believed by several American media outlets to potentially have a major impact on the ongoing debate about election integrity and national security in the U.S.