During a primetime televised address, President Donald Trump announced the release of declassified intelligence reports that allegedly reveal “shocking vulnerabilities” in the American election infrastructure.
According to the president, the documents – now accessible on the White House website – indicate that the U.S.’s election system is “dangerously exposed” to “hacking, exploitation, and foreign intelligence.”
China's Allegedly Acquired 220 Million U.S. Voter Files
Citing the documents, President Trump accused the People’s Republic of China (PRC) of executing “the largest compromise of election data in history” during the 2020 election cycle.
The PRC allegedly acquired 220 million U.S. voter files during the period. These files included “names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities.”
Deep State Reportedly Tried To Downplay PRC's Involvement
President Trump also accused “members of the Deep State” in the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) of “actively suppress[ing] and downplay[ing]” the PRC’s attempts to undermine President Trump since his first administration.
This allegedly includes efforts to force President Trump to “resign or prevent his reelection,” the 2018 U.S. Midterm elections, influencing business leaders to “turn against” the president, and paying reporters “large sums of money” to write as many negative articles about President Trump as they could.
Obama Allegedly Ordered "Burn Bags"
President Trump also claimed that under former President Barack Obama’s administration, IC members were ordered to use “burn bags” to destroy information about “China’s meddling.”
Other Accusations From President Trump
Along with alleged Chinese interference, President Trump also accused U.S. adversaries of having “the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” voter fraud in Michigan, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report of hundreds of thousands of noncitizen voter registrations, and Venezuela's capability to “digitally alter vote totals” that are undetectable during an audit.
Florida Leaders Respond
“Tonight’s revelations in [President Trump’s] speech were truly shocking,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) shared.
“Communist China is our ENEMY and will stop at nothing to undermine our republic and destroy our way of life,” the Florida Senator added, claiming that “the deep state will stop at nothing” to remain in power and control the American populace.
“Time to yank CCP student visas, which are hundreds of thousands a year,” Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote on X, in response.
