U.S. President Donald Trump said he declassified intelligence materials that he claims show Chinese interference in the 2020 American election. However, the U.S. intelligence community previously concluded there is no evidence of Beijing's influence on the voting results. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

During a 25-minute speech, Trump alleged that China illegally accessed data of 220 million American voters, including names, addresses, and other information used for voter registration. He also accused intelligence officials of concealing information about the scale of Beijing's activities.

These claims contradict the 2021 assessment by the U.S. intelligence community, which stated that no foreign country attempted to alter or could influence the technical aspects of the 2020 presidential election, including voter registration, vote counting, and final results. The assessment was prepared under the direction of then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who now heads the CIA.

According to Reuters, even before Trump's speech, some White House officials expressed concern that publishing declassified materials could create a false impression of China's role.

Trump has again made election security a key issue in his political agenda ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. He continues to push for laws requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship for voter registration.

Numerous court cases, recounts, and audits after the 2020 election found no evidence of widespread fraud, despite Trump's long-standing claims that his loss to Joe Biden was due to cheating.

Before the president's speech, Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Chang told Reuters that Beijing never interfered and does not intend to interfere in U.S. presidential elections.

Meanwhile, Washington-Beijing relations have recently stabilized after a trade confrontation. According to the agency, Trump plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September to discuss further development of bilateral trade.

The declassified materials published by the administration do not contain clear confirmation of Trump's claims. For instance, one CIA document concerns elections in Venezuela and is unrelated to the U.S. electoral system. Another document states that vote-counting systems are difficult to compromise on a scale sufficient to change election results.

Another document describes Chinese intelligence attempts to gather information about Joe Biden's campaign but also indicates that Beijing did not plan covert interference to influence the election outcome at that time.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner called the president's statements "complete nonsense." "The fact remains: the U.S. intelligence community unanimously concluded that China did not even attempt to alter the voting results in the 2020 election," the senator said.

Additionally, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to U.S. intelligence leaders urging them not to allow intelligence to be used to support unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.

Reuters notes that two of the three largest U.S. television networks, as well as CNN, did not air the president's address in prime time on their main channels. ABC limited broadcast to its streaming platform ABC News Live and ABC News Radio. NBC aired the speech only on NBC News NOW, while CNN provided live coverage on its website and paid platform CNN All Access.

According to experts, TV networks have the right to decide which addresses to broadcast, but usually presidential speeches on matters of national importance are aired on main channels.