Shafaqna Pakistan: US President Donald Trump on Thursday declassified documents he claimed show Chinese interference in US elections, renewing his longstanding allegations about election security despite previous US intelligence assessments that found no evidence Beijing influenced the 2020 presidential election.
During a 25-minute prime-time address, Trump made election security a central focus ahead of November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans will seek to defend their narrow majorities in Congress.
Trump also urged Republican lawmakers to pass legislation introducing stricter voter identification and citizenship requirements. The proposed bill, however, remains stalled in the Senate amid strong opposition from Democrats, while longstanding studies have found voter fraud in US elections to be rare.
Trump asserts “shocking vulnerabilities”
Trump said the declassified material would reveal “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure”. But many appeared to show the opposite, or were not related to the US election infrastructure at all.
The speech came at a challenging political moment for Trump and Republicans, with his approval rating weighed down by the unpopular Iran war and high energy prices. Trump briefly mentioned the war at the outset, saying the US was “winning big,” while listing a series of domestic accomplishments, including tax cuts and his immigration crackdown, before turning to election security.
The president said he was declassifying sensitive information that showed China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files, including names, addresses, and other data.
He asserted that members of the US intelligence community deliberately suppressed information about the extent of China’s activities.
An unclassified 2021 US intelligence assessment found no indications that any foreign actor attempted to or succeeded in altering “any technical aspect” of the 2020 presidential election vote, including voter registrations, ballots, tabulations or results.
Source: Express Tribune
