The White House released a series of documents Thursday evening promoting President Donald Trump’s assertion that U.S. elections are vulnerable, though at least one contains information the president has previously denied.
Among the trove of election integrity documents, released in tandem with the president’s speech, one National Intelligence Council assessment on “Foreign Threats to the 2020 Election” determined that Russian government-linked actors were trying to boost Trump’s campaign.
The document insinuates that Russia seemingly preferred Trump and wanted to boost his campaign on social media while disparaging former President Joe Biden’s then-presidential campaign.
However, when that information was initially released in 2020, Trump brushed it off as a “hoax” and accused Democrats of spreading misinformation that Russia preferred him as a candidate.
Yet the information was part of the declassified documents the White House released in an attempt to reinforce Trump’s allegations that U.S. elections are vulnerable to foreign interference, voter fraud and manipulation.
The Independent has asked the White House for comment.
“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment,” the National Intelligence Council assessment reads.
“Some Kremlin-linked actors are also seeking to boost President Trump’s candidacy on social media.”
Trump has long denied that Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 or 2020 election and boost his campaign. In a tweet from 2020, the president called the information “another misinformation campaign” from “Democrats in Congress.”
“Hoax number 7!” The president wrote on Twitter at the time.
The “Election Integrity” document drop was published on the White House’s website as the president was addressing the nation on election security, in an attempt to bolster his claims of widespread voter fraud and to encourage Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
However, most of the information released appears to be already known vulnerabilities, such as foreign actors attempting to create political division in the U.S. through social media posts or misinformation campaigns.
Other revelations appear to exclude certain conclusions, seemingly to add more weight to the allegations. As an example, a set of documents claims China downloaded voter records, which include phone numbers, in 2020. However, that information was publicly available and ultimately, an intelligence assessment determined that the information was not used to compromise the election outcome or voting information.
None of the declassified documents support Trump’s years-long false assertion that the 2020 election was rigged, contained mass voter fraud or was influenced to change the outcome.
