MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump accuses China of meddling in 2020 election, though intelligence findings say otherwise

The address came less than four months before the November midterm elections, in which polls point to an unfavorable outlook for the Republican Party

US President Donald Trump accused China of interfering in the 2020 presidential election and of having the complicity of officials who, he said, concealed that information. He did so on Thursday night in a primetime address to the nation from the White House, announcing the declassification of documents that he claimed reveal vulnerabilities in the US electoral system.

Trump said Beijing carried out “the largest compromise of election data in history,” through the illicit acquisition of 220 million voter files. The figure is close to the total number of registered voters in 2020, which stood at around 214 million. The president also claimed China sought to block his reelection at the time and ordered the Justice Department to investigate the alleged cover-up and bring charges “if appropriate.”

The released documents, posted on the White House website, do not contradict the prior conclusions of the US intelligence community. A March 2021 assessment found with “high confidence” that China chose not to try to alter the election's outcome and did not interfere with vote-counting infrastructure — a conclusion repeated within the very files now declassified. A report from early 2020 included in the batch likewise warned that manipulating the outcome on a wide scale would be difficult.

The batch includes a CIA file on an alleged plot to manipulate results in favor of Nicolás Maduro's government in Venezuela, a country whose 2020 election Trump called “rigged.” There is no proof that the Chavista movement had the capacity to influence the US system. Maduro is being held in New York following his capture in January and faces narcoterrorism, cocaine-importation, and weapons charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

The address came less than four months before the November midterm elections, in which polls point to an unfavorable outlook for the Republican Party. Trump used the speech to press for passage of his electoral reform, the SAVE America Act, which tightens voter-identification requirements and remains stalled in the Senate for lack of votes. Networks including NBC, ABC, and CNN did not broadcast the speech live on television.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said the address had more to do with the 2026 elections than those of 2020. Republican lawmakers also voiced unease. Trump has for years repeated claims of fraud in 2020 — an election he lost by seven million votes — that intelligence agencies and the courts have repeatedly rejected.