Trump’s election files point to Russia as China claim fizzles
Documents released by the White House undercut Trump’s push to blame China for 2020 election interference and revive a stalled voting bill.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Donald Trump’s new batch of declassified election documents was meant to bolster his case that China interfered in the 2020 election. The papers instead put fresh attention on a familiar culprit: Russia.
The president used a primetime address Thursday to urge Congress to revive the SAVE America Act, a voting bill that would require stricter documentary proof of citizenship to cast a ballot. The measure narrowly passed the House and has been stalled in the Senate for months.
Trump has rebranded the proposal as the “SAVE and Protect” Act while arguing that China tried to sway U.S. elections and accessed more than 220 million voter files. According to the intelligence material released by the White House, China’s activity was described in narrower terms than Trump suggested.
The documents say China preferred Trump lose in 2020, but describe its influence activity largely as public criticism of Trump’s administration. The report also notes that U.S. intelligence officials have long known China collected publicly available voter information from states.
What the documents say
The release included a 2020 assessment from the National Intelligence Council, an expert body within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that advises policymakers on national security matters.
That partially redacted assessment said Russia was using multiple methods “primarily to denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment.” It also said some Kremlin-linked actors were trying to lift Trump’s candidacy on social media.
The assessment went further, saying President Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials were overseeing proxy efforts to circulate allegations about Biden, Ukrainian politicians and claims about Ukrainian influence in the 2016 U.S. election.
Those claims included allegations that Biden, while vice president, engaged in criminal activity connected to Ukraine and people tied to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, according to the assessment.
The finding cuts against Trump’s long-running dismissal of investigations and reporting about Russian interference as a “hoax.” The documents released by his own administration repeat the intelligence community’s earlier view that Russia took public and covert steps to help his 2020 campaign.
No evidence votes were flipped
The documents do not show that any foreign country changed vote totals in the 2020 election, despite Trump’s claims in the speech.
John Solomon, who was given access to the documents by the Trump administration and helped present the new allegations, acknowledged that point after the speech in an interview outside the White House with MS NOW.
Solomon said “the intelligence community has zero evidence” that a foreign power flipped votes in 2020, 2022 or 2024. NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard posted video of the exchange on X, adding that Solomon also said there was no intelligence showing Venezuela tampered with U.S. voting machines.
Hillyard reported that when Solomon was asked whether Biden’s 2020 victory was accurate, Solomon responded that he was still researching it. During the interview, a White House staffer repeatedly tried to end the exchange and bring Solomon back inside, according to the posted video.
The fight now returns to Capitol Hill, where Trump’s voting bill remains short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate. Rolling Stone reported that some Republicans are uneasy about the legislation because its documentary requirements could also block GOP voters, not just Democrats, months before the midterms.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.