WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump, in a primetime address on July 16, announced the declassification of information that he said reveals large-scale Chinese hacking of American voter information.
“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,” he said.
“That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences.”
An accompanying transparency report from the White House stated that China gained access to voter roll data across 18 states. One declassified document reviewed by The Epoch Times detailed a PRC-linked actor’s alleged use of commercial websites to acquire voter data from six U.S. states.
Trump further said that members of the intelligence community sought to suppress data on China’s attempt to influence American elections.
In addition, Trump detailed the findings of an investigation from the Department of Homeland Security that showed 278,000 noncitizens were registered on American voter rolls.
That analysis did not include blue states, according to Trump. Those states have fought against the Trump administration’s election security efforts, joining together in a lawsuit to prevent the president from obtaining voter information from them so as to compile a national list of eligible voters.
“These disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it. It is not defensible,” Trump 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 outlined the declassification and release of multiple groups of documents, including assessments he said reveal “a cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy”—vulnerabilities in election databases and other systems, including electronic voting machines.
“This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare,” he said, referring to the information China obtained.
Citing reporting from the CIA, the president outlined what he described as a multi-year influence campaign by China during his first term aimed at American companies and journalists.
“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.”
The president further said that intelligence reports outlining Chinese operations directed at the election were withheld from daily presidential briefings during his first term.
He said he was instructing the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and other top officials “to investigate how and why such crucial information was hidden, to fire those involved in the cover-up, and to file criminal charges if appropriate against these people.”
Trump did not confine his speech to U.S. elections.
He pointed to a CIA report that detailed former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s bid to manipulate that country’s 2020 election.
The president ended his speech with an appeal to Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, election integrity legislation that has passed the House but continues to flounder in the Senate.
The legislation would require photo identification at the polls as well as proof of citizenship for those registering to vote.
“No country could be great without fair and honest elections,” Trump said.
Earlier in the evening, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security were launching a website with a map outlining the Trump administration’s election integrity measures.
Trump delivered his speech less than four months ahead of what’s expected to be a tough midterm battle for Republicans.
