The heads of several intelligence and national security agencies have backed President Trump’s assertion that China interfered in U.S. elections through voter registration data.
According to a fact sheet released by the White House, the directors of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security each have confirmed that China “bought, stole, or hacked as many as 220 million Americans’ voter registration data.”
In 2022, the Intelligence Community (IC) flagged a Chinese Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) actor, believing they acquired voter registration data located on commercial websites, the fact sheet explains.
It further states that the declassified documents released by the Trump administration adequately explain “election interference,” noting that interference does not necessarily equate to changing the results of an election, as it is classically defined as a “subset of election influence targeted at the technical aspects of the election, including voter registration, casting and counting of ballots, and reporting of results.”
In light of the definition, China’s acquisition of voter registration data constitutes as election interference.
The heads note that the IC “approved the factual statements from their documents used in the President’s speech.”
President Trump said in a primetime address to the nation that 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’s address brought 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.”
