President Donald Trump used the authority of his office and US intelligence agencies to undermine confidence in American elections during a Thursday address from the East Room of the White House.
The speech appeared aimed at laying groundwork for destabilizing the electoral system before November's midterm elections.
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Trump claimed his administration had uncovered new findings about election vulnerabilities, alleging China illicitly acquired voter information on 220 million Americans.
He did not specify how China obtained the data, though many states allow anyone to purchase voter roll information.
He also asserted China interfered in other ways to undermine his 2020 campaign and that intelligence officials suppressed the information.
However, US intelligence officials had already investigated these claims.
In 2021, they concluded with high confidence that China "did not deploy interference efforts" and "considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US presidential election."
A minority view from the national intelligence officer for cyber argued China took some steps to undermine Trump's reelection through social media and public statements, but even that dissenting opinion stated there was no information suggesting China tried to interfere with election processes.
The White House released a tranche of formerly classified materials Thursday to undercut that conclusion, but the documents were heavily redacted.
CNN reviewed them and found little new information.
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The release appeared to be a return to Trump's classic strategy of flooding the zone with information to muddy the waters and create uncertainty.
