President Trump delivered a primetime address on Thursday, revealing declassified documents that point to China’s involvement in the 2020 presidential election.
“Over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files,” Trump said.
“That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities, which is exactly what was happening. This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare. The intelligence even shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project, compounding the travesty,” he continued.
Trump noted that the disclosures reveal “an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible.” He said, “Tens of millions of voters’ data in 18 states have been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden.”
The president went on to bring attention to CIA reporting revealing an influence campaign from China. “The cover up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of the additional information showing that China engaged in other election related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign,” Trump said. “The Chinese government sought to identify U.S. journalists who had reported negatively on the U.S. president and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him—as many as they could.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian called the information “fabricated,” WAFB 9 reports.
“The relevant allegations by the U.S. are entirely fabricated and aimed at vilifying China,” said Lin. “We have no interest in interfering in US elections and have never done so.”
