President says Beijing obtained 220 million US voter files and intelligence officials suppressed evidence, but released documents and a 2021 assessment found no effort to alter votes or resultsU.S. President Donald Trump declassified intelligence Thursday that he said showed Chinese interference in American elections, renewing his attacks on election security despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that found no evidence Beijing altered the 2020 vote he lost.The 25-minute prime-time address highlighted Trump’s effort to make election security a central political issue ahead of the November midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their congressional majorities and could lose control of one or both chambers. Trump has urged congressional Republicans to pass legislation imposing new voter identification and citizenship requirements, despite longstanding findings that voter fraud in U.S. elections is rare.(Photo: AP Photo/Matt Rourke)Trump said the newly released information showed that China had illicitly obtained 220 million U.S. voter files containing names, addresses and other registration data. He also accused members of the U.S. intelligence community of deliberately suppressing information about the extent of Beijing’s activities.His allegations contradict an unclassified 2021 intelligence community assessment that found no indication any foreign actor had attempted or succeeded in altering any technical aspect of the 2020 presidential election, including voter registration, ballots, tabulation systems or final results. That assessment was conducted while John Ratcliffe, now Trump’s CIA director, was serving as director of national intelligence.Some White House officials were concerned before the speech that releasing the China-related material could be misleading, sources told Reuters. Trump’s sharp rhetoric also risked unsettling relations with Beijing after ties stabilized following last year’s costly trade war. Trump hopes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in September to discuss trade.“China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Chang said before Trump’s address.Trump has spent years casting doubt on U.S. election results and continues to falsely claim that his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged. He has also promoted unsupported claims that mail-in voting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and noncitizen voting is widespread. Numerous courts and recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in the 2020 election.Trump said the declassified material would also reveal “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure,” but several documents appeared to show the opposite or were unrelated to U.S. elections. One CIA document prepared last month concerned Venezuela’s election, while another said vote-tabulation systems would be difficult to manipulate on a scale large enough to compromise election results.A third CIA document described Chinese intelligence efforts targeting Biden’s campaign but said Beijing did not intend at the time to covertly interfere to sway the election outcome, although it could later reconsider.“Trump’s shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election.”Earlier Thursday, Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte and the heads of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency, warning them not to allow Trump to “weaponize intelligence to support false claims about election security.”Two of the three major U.S. television networks and CNN declined to carry Trump’s address on their main platforms, departing from the customary treatment of major presidential speeches on issues of national importance.Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has sought to expand federal power over election administration, which the U.S. Constitution largely assigns to state governments. He has also pressured Senate Republicans to advance the SAVE America Act, which would require photo identification to vote, proof of U.S. citizenship to register and state sharing of voter-registration data with the federal government.Democrats and voting-rights groups say fraud is exceedingly rare and argue that the legislation would disenfranchise eligible voters. Some Republican leaders have urged Trump to focus instead on issues such as the cost of living rather than continuing to revisit the 2020 election.“I don’t know what he’s going to say,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday when asked whether Trump should avoid discussing the 2020 vote. “The only thing I can tell you is, we are focused on the 2026 election, at least I am, and I think most of my colleagues are.”Republicans are heading into the midterms amid political headwinds, with Trump’s approval rating underwater and voters frustrated by the Iran war and high energy prices. Democrats need to flip only three Republican-held seats to win control of the House, though they face a more difficult path to a Senate majority because several key races are in Republican-leaning states.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats were preparing for the possibility that the White House could seek to manipulate the November election.“They know they can’t win the election fair and square,” Schumer said. “So we don’t put it past them to try whatever they can.”