Declassified documents revealed that the FBI was aware of intelligence suggesting China attempted to interfere in the 2020 presidential election by using fake U.S. driver's licenses to cast votes for candidate Joe Biden, according to a report by the conservative U.S. media outlet Just the News on the 16th (local time).

Just the News reported that allegations of a cover-up arose because the FBI ordered the deletion and destruction of the original intelligence report shortly after its distribution, which conflicted with the authorities' previous stance that there was no Chinese interference in the election.

A classified National Intelligence Council (NIC) document from April 2020 titled "Cyber Operations Enabling Authoritarian Expansion" stated, "Chinese intelligence agencies analyzed election voter registration data from multiple U.S. states to analyze public opinion regarding the 2020 U.S. general election."

Just the News reported that Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA, are working to declassify explosive documents that detail China's actions and who within the U.S. government knew about them and when.

Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said on The John Solomon Reports podcast, scheduled to air on Tuesday, "What's truly baffling is that China can access these voter rolls, but we can't."

U.S. intelligence agencies possess multiple unreleased reports indicating China accessed U.S. voter registration data in several states starting in the spring of 2020, along with several completed intelligence reports referencing such data breaches. This includes at least one Presidential Daily Briefing, it was revealed.

However, Just the News reported that the only publicly available evidence is the excerpt from the declassified Director of National Intelligence (DNI) document released by the Biden administration.

Voter registration data contains sensitive personally identifiable information, including driver's license information and parts of Social Security numbers, leading some Democratic states to try to prevent the Trump administration's Justice Department from obtaining it.

If such data falls into the hands of foreign powers, it can be used to impersonate individuals with fabricated social personas designed to influence elections or to apply for absentee ballots and cast fraudulent votes. Recent declassified documents indicate the FBI was concerned about the possibility of China engaging in such activities during the 2020 presidential election.

A former intelligence official who served in the Biden administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Just the News, "There is as much evidence that China accessed U.S. voter registration files as there was about what ultimately caused a huge controversy in the UK."

The official added, "This was known at the White House briefing in February 2020 and was included in a cyber-hacking report by April 2020. It's truly astounding that it has been kept secret for so long."

Former NIC operative Christopher Porter told Just the News, "By April 2020, we knew that Chinese intelligence agencies had obtained voter registration data from multiple states and were analyzing it with the 2020 election in mind. However, the CIA blocked efforts to inform President Trump about this, and later even blocked these reports from being submitted to Congress."

He continued, "During the Biden administration, when I raised concerns about the legal requirements to submit these and other reports to congressional oversight, they reassigned me from election-related duties and eventually fired me."

Officials said the DNI team, to which Director Gabbard belongs, received briefings on China's access to voter registration data and is working to declassify the original reports for potential public release.

Director Ratcliffe of the CIA is highly knowledgeable on this matter. As Director of National Intelligence under the Trump administration during the 2020 election, he agreed with Porter's assessment and authored a report arguing that China interfered in the election more broadly than U.S. intelligence agencies were willing to acknowledge.

Liz Ryerson, CIA Public Affairs Director, told Just the News, "The integrity of our elections is paramount to our republic, and Director Ratcliffe made it clear that he would expose and hold accountable any attempt by America's adversaries to undermine it."

Amid revelations of China's access to U.S. voter data, senators are set to discuss President Trump's top priority bill, the "Save America Act," this week. This legislation mandates the verification of voter citizenship and the presentation of identification.

U.S. intelligence agencies have acknowledged that at least two foreign powers, including Russia and Iran, accessed U.S. voter data. According to unsealed indictments, Iranian hackers downloaded 100,000 voter profiles in one week in 2020. While intelligence agencies explicitly outlined the risks of such hacking when assessing these two data breaches, they made no mention of China.

U.S. intelligence agencies officially stated that China was positioned to exert malign influence on the election but did not actually take such actions in the 2020 election. According to a declassified report from April 2020, intelligence agencies concluded in their official assessments that China's actions were limited to analyzing voter data and did not involve any overt acts of election interference.

However, some intelligence officials disputed these conclusions and authored counter-reports containing some evidence of Chinese interference in the 2020 election. One such official was Ratcliffe, the current CIA Director, who was then the Director of National Intelligence.

In June, FBI Director Kash Patel submitted a long-suppressed intelligence report from 2020 to Congress. This report raised concerns that China had planned to manipulate election results in favor of Biden by mass-producing fake U.S. driver's licenses for fraudulent mail-in votes.

The FBI intelligence report was forwarded as an unverified recommendation to U.S. intelligence agencies on August 24, 2020. Then, in September 2020, it was suddenly recalled the day after then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified to Congress that he had not witnessed large-scale election fraud attempts.

The unverified intelligence report bore the direct title: "In late August 2020, the Chinese government produced and exported counterfeit U.S. driver's licenses to U.S.-based Chinese sympathizers to manipulate tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in votes for U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden."

The report was immediately recalled, and intelligence agencies were instructed to delete the information before they had an opportunity to properly investigate its claims.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stated in July 2020 that "counterfeit driver's licenses continue to be discovered by CBP officers" at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. CBP announced that from January to June 2020, it "seized 1,513 shipments of fraudulent documents, totaling 19,888 counterfeit U.S. driver's licenses, the majority of which originated from China and Hong Kong."

Just the News also reported on other declassified information indicating that cyber hackers linked to the Chinese government and Chinese social media troll farms had interfered in the 2020 U.S. election, attempting to manipulate the results to be unfavorable to Trump and favorable to Biden. It also cited strong evidence suggesting the involvement of Chinese intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the Ministry of State Security (MSS) and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).

The U.S. Department of Justice later filed indictments in 2023 against members of the Chinese Communist Party's (MPS) 912 Special Project Task Force for conspiring with United Front Work Department officials in 2020. An FBI Special Agent alleged that "this conspiracy likely involved topics related to the U.S. government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation in Hong Kong, civil unrest in the United States following the death of George Floyd, and the 2020 presidential election."

Subsequently, in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice filed indictments against Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) agents for multiple criminal influence operations. The Justice Department stated at the time, "The charges in the indictments concerning malicious cyber activity targeting politicians, candidates, and campaign officials are consistent with a report jointly issued by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concerning the 2020 presidential election."

That report cited instances where actors linked to the Chinese government "significantly impacted the security of U.S. political organizations, candidates, and campaigns during the 2020 federal elections."

According to the indictment, seven Chinese hackers identified as belonging to APT31 were indicted on charges of computer intrusion and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, targeting critics, businesses, and politicians in the U.S. and abroad over 14 years. The Justice Department stated that dozens of MSS intelligence officers were involved in this case.

The federal Justice Department stated, "The defendants, through their affiliation with the APT31 group, have engaged in a global computer hacking campaign targeting, at least since 2010, individuals presumed to be political dissidents and supporters inside and outside of China, government and political officials, candidates and campaign officials in the United States and other countries, and U.S. businesses."

The Justice Department added that the "targeted U.S. government officials" spanned multiple federal departments and agencies, including the White House, and that "campaign staff for both major U.S. political parties were also included as targets in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election."

The indictment specified concrete activities undertaken by MSS-linked hackers in 2020, stating, "The conspirators began targeting the email accounts of several senior staff members of presidential campaigns starting in March 2020."

By U.S. NNP=Chief Reporter Hong Seong-gu / Special Correspondent NNP info@newsandpost.com