WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump released newly declassified documents July 16 related to foreign influence in U.S. elections, while others appear to demonstrate the prior administration’s attempts to downplay connections in intelligence reports.
Among other election-related challenges revealed, intelligence analysts reported the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was targeting top U.S. officials, acquiring hundreds of millions of Americans’ personal information, and attempting to sway public opinion.
According to a newly declassified CIA wire memo from July 2020, which included information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency, the Chinese Communist Party was targeting “personal e-mail accounts of senior US leadership, including officials in the Executive Office of the President and high-ranking officials in multiple Executive Branch organizations, Congress, and the federal judiciary.”
The report noted that CCP-related cyber actors were amassing election-related data from U.S. databases, polling companies, political organizations, and campaigns, among other nonprofit groups. Operatives collected more than 204 million Americans’ data, much of it coming from information that was “publicly available for download.”
A separate National Intelligence Council report found that “Beijing has expanded its cyber collection of data related to the 2020 US elections by carrying out opportunistic intrusions against US private-sector entities in efforts to collect information on US political candidates, campaigns, donors, and voter data.”
Intelligence analysts assessed that “Beijing’s efforts probably have included overt messaging, nascent online covert influence capabilities, diplomatic measures, and the use of economic leverage,” while noting the CCP held off from utilizing its “most aggressive options for influencing or interfering in the election, [redacted] because Beijing wants to minimize the risk of blowback and hopes to stabilize the relationship after the election.”
A raw intelligence report from the FBI described a source’s revelations that the CCP produced tens of thousands of fraudulent U.S. driver’s licenses and exported them to the United States for the purpose of allowing “Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party to vote for US Presidential Candidate … Joe Biden.”
Several documents in the tranche show intelligence officials discussing efforts to minimize reporting on the election issues.
“This is a really good example, but far from the only one, of what I’ve been raising since the summer, that the [intelligence community] is deliberately avoiding mentioning a connection to elections for non-substantive reasons,” one unnamed intelligence officer wrote in an email after evidence surfaced that “China has been caught conducting election influence.”
Investigations revealed attempts to influence American politics by stirring up tensions and creating racial and socio-economic divides by promoting immigration and anti-government protests.
“The Chinese … had assessed … that racial conflict would be a large factor in the election, … government-affiliated Chinese technology company employees were assisting … with a campaign, … to covertly incite violence and protests against the US Government,” a newly released National Intelligence Council report reads.
Efforts to influence the public were deployed to “project themes” across social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others, according to one of the documents.
No direct links to the CCP were uncovered, but intelligence analysts assessed “that elements of the government were, at a minimum, aware of and condoned the campaign, and may have directed or conducted it.”
Other reports mention foreign adversaries, including China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela, among others, and their potential ability to compromise U.S. election systems.
“For years Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure,” Trump said during a nationally televised event before releasing the files.
Documents related to voter registration investigations in Michigan include FBI files related to a 2020 raid in Muskegon, following allegations of fraudulent registrations. Trump is directing further federal reviews and prosecution if crimes were committed.
The Department of Homeland Security reviewed voter rolls from cooperating states and identified approximately 278,000 individuals who are potentially non-citizens.
Election officials in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada were put on notice that allowing non-citizens to vote is a “serious threat to national security,” according to one document.
