President Trump used a primetime address Thursday to announce the declassification of intelligence documents he said would prove China interfered in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden win. One of the documents in the same release concludes the opposite: Russia, not China, worked to damage Biden’s candidacy and boost Trump’s.
Trump said newly declassified CIA and FBI reporting showed China “attempted to manufacture illegal ballots” for Biden and that the Chinese Communist Party “sought to prevent his reelection,” and claimed China illegally acquired 220 million American voter files. He did not explain how the data reached China or present evidence it was used to alter any results.
CNN‘s review of the documents found they largely restate vulnerabilities known for years, and that “none of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results… were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud.”
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A document marked as declassified by Trump on July 3 says otherwise. “Russia is using a range of measures primarily to denigrate former Vice President Biden,” it reads, adding that “Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media.”
Russian proxies including Andriy Derkach, Konstantin Kilimnik, and a group called “United World International” advanced claims about Biden’s dealings with Ukraine and the energy firm Burisma in coordination with “US officials and other prominent persons,” the document says, aiming to “orchestrate a high-profile corruption scandal implicating former Vice President Biden… their aim is to defeat the former Vice President and ensure the President’s victory.”
It also notes Russia reconnoitered multiple state and local government websites as of June 2020, though its authors say they don’t know why.
The language closely tracks a National Intelligence Council assessment declassified in March 2021, which found Putin authorized influence operations “aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy… supporting former President Trump,” while Iran ran a separate campaign “intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects.” Its fourth key judgment: China “did not deploy interference efforts” in the 2020 race at all.
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There was also a chart in Thursday’s release that rated each country’s activity across categories, including direct attempts to target or manipulate election systems. Russia is the only country marked with confirmed, “observed” action in that category; China and Iran are listed only as having taken “preliminary or preparatory steps.” The document’s own text concludes that “Russia was the only country trying to meddle in American voting systems.”
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Trump’s claims about China “totally bogus.”
Garrett Archer, a former senior elections analyst at the Arizona secretary of state’s office, said the released documents confirm China accessed only publicly available voter data, not evidence of hacking into election infrastructure.
A separate assessment in the release found Chinese cyber actors targeted Biden’s 2020 campaign for intelligence-gathering purposes but concluded China “does not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election,” consistent with an earlier National Intelligence Council finding that China stayed on the sidelines of the race rather than backing either candidate.
The White House formally asked broadcasters to carry Thursday night’s speech live, and Trump made their decisions a talking point in his remarks, even threatening to revoke their license. ABC and NBC aired it only on their streaming platforms rather than preempting primetime programming, and CNN didn’t carry it live on its main network either.
Fox News and its broadcast network did air the address live. However, anchor Bret Baier followed it with a disclaimer, saying Fox “has not seen that documentation yet and is not in a position to assess the accuracy of the president’s statements.”
