Biden Administration Accused of Suppressing Intelligence on China's 2020 Access to U.S. Voter Data
Former National Intelligence Council officer Christopher Porter, who handled the China cyber portfolio, confirmed the intelligence: "We knew by April 2020 that Chinese intelligence had voter registration data from multiple states and was analyzing it with an eye toward the 2020 election."
RWTNews Staff
U.S. intelligence agencies possessed evidence since spring 2020 that Chinese operatives accessed voter registration files from multiple states, including sensitive data such as driver's license information and partial Social Security numbers, yet the Biden administration kept the findings largely secret from the public and Congress for years.
A classified April 2020 National Intelligence Council memo, titled "Cyber Operations Enabling Expansive Authoritarianism," explicitly stated that Chinese intelligence officials analyzed multiple U.S. states' election voter registration data to conduct public opinion analysis ahead of the 2020 general election. The memo was quietly declassified by the Biden administration in October 2022 but received no public attention at the time.
Former National Intelligence Council officer Christopher Porter, who handled the China cyber portfolio, confirmed the intelligence: "We knew by April 2020 that Chinese intelligence had voter registration data from multiple states and was analyzing it with an eye toward the 2020 election." Porter alleged that the CIA blocked efforts to brief President Trump on the breach and later restricted reports from reaching congressional oversight committees. Under the Biden administration, his portfolio was altered to exclude election-related matters, and he was fired after raising concerns about sharing the intelligence.
The revelation contrasts sharply with Britain's public outrage when China hacked its voter databases around the same period. U.S. officials expressed alarm privately but issued no comparable warnings or disclosures here. A related 2020 FBI report on Chinese production of fraudulent U.S. driver's licenses for potential mail-in voting was recalled and ordered deleted without further investigation.
Current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been briefed on the raw intelligence and is working to declassify additional reports. The findings come as Congress debates new election security legislation.