Trump says these documents prove his false claims about election fraud. Here’s what they’re really saying

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump released a trove of documents during a prime-time address to the nation that allies touted as damning evidence that would prove his long-debunked claims of mass voter fraud.

He watches: Trump is trying to undermine confidence in the election, but the documents do not support his claims

Speaking from the White House on Thursday evening, he described shocking revelations, such as Chinese interference to undermine his failed candidacy in 2020 and a cover-up by the “deep state.” “Americans blatantly lied about the security of our election infrastructure,” he claimed.

But an Associated Press review found no such confirmation in the trove of newly declassified reports, investigative files, intelligence analysis and assorted correspondence. Many pages are so heavily redacted that their findings are unclear. Others identify vulnerabilities and assessments that have been well documented for years. There is no evidence that China or any other foreign entity tampered with the vote in 2020 or any other year.

“The White House promised the bomb, but they failed,” said David Pecker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who attended a White House briefing on the materials before the speech. Despite what appeared to be a coordinated effort by administration officials, “there was absolutely nothing here that was news, nothing here that even called into question past elections, and certainly not the 2020 election.”

Here’s a look at what the documents say.

China has our data. Lots of it

“Beginning in the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China implemented what is believed to be the largest election data compromise in history, resulting in China’s illegal seizure of 220 million American voter files,” Trump said Thursday night.

However, there is no evidence that China actually used that information in any way.

It has long been proven that China collects vast amounts of data on Americans that is unrelated to any efforts to rig votes or change election results. Public copies of voter files are widely available, including online, and can be bought and sold by campaigns and political parties so they know which doors to knock on and where to send the mail.

China’s efforts to influence the 2020 campaign have already been well documented, and there has been no assessment of any direct election interference. The records released Thursday evening do not refute this conclusion, but they do reveal internal debate in the intelligence community over how to characterize Beijing’s efforts and motivations.

Read more: Fact-checking Trump’s rhetoric on China, the 2020 election, and what the documents show

The opposing view was that China had taken steps to “discredit” Trump, the emails show. But this perspective, rather than being hidden, was actually reflected in the intelligence community’s assessment released after the election.

China on Friday called Trump’s claims “baseless” and “completely fabricated” and said it had never interfered in a US election and had no interest in doing so.

Noncitizens may or may not be more common on voter rolls

In his remarks, Trump praised the launch of a new Department of Homeland Security investigation, based on state voter rolls and public records, which he said identified nearly 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections.

The report said the agency identified more than a quarter of a million noncitizens illegally registered to vote in California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada, based on public records, which were often false or incomplete. It claimed that another 28,000 non-citizens were found on voter rolls in 25 states using the new systematic verification of aliens for entitlements system.

However, there is no claim that any of these people actually voted, which would be a crime.

This data has not been verified either. Reports have found that the SAVE database is riddled with errors, including outdated information that often classifies naturalized citizens as non-citizens. In fact, a federal judge blocked the use of the database over concerns that voters were wrongly removed from voter rolls.

Studies have found that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. Noncitizens are also allowed to vote in some local elections, and may be listed for this reason.

Documents detailing Russian election efforts

Trump has spent years criticizing the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him win. But the documents shed new light on the country’s ongoing efforts.

One declassified document from 2020 depicts Russia as the country that has tried most to hack US election systems — but in an attempt to defeat Joe Biden. The report notes how Russia amplified allegations that Biden, while serving as vice president, engaged in inappropriate behavior related to Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that employed his son Hunter, a charge repeatedly repeated by Trump and Republicans.

“Their goal is to defeat the former Vice President and ensure the President’s victory,” the document issued by the National Intelligence Council stated.

The document went on to indicate that China and Iran want Trump to lose. But it included a chart documenting the known efforts of each country. Only Russia was designated as known to be involved in “targeting, accessing, or manipulating electoral processes or election-related systems.”

Russia continued to deny interference in American affairs.

Michigan is in the spotlight

Many of the documents disclosed relate to a Michigan case, in which an apparently pro-Biden ballot counting operation submitted thousands of questionable voter registrations to a local elections official in 2020. The official did not accept the recordings and notified authorities.

The documents include notes from at least one FBI agent that are heavily redacted but indicate that the agent unsuccessfully pushed for further investigations and charges until 2024. Michigan Republicans complained in 2023 that the state’s Democratic attorney general had not brought charges against anyone.

However, the case was closed “because the reasonable investigation and/or evidence has been exhausted, and the investigation has not yet identified a criminal violation or priority threat to national security,” according to one of the records.

Weaknesses in voting systems

Trump told the nation that the documents include intelligence that “reveals horrific vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure” that make it vulnerable to “hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference.”

One report included a list of recent violations — most by Russia — and called on state and local election officials to step up their defenses to prevent the information from being used to obtain absentee ballots or change voter rolls. Election officials acknowledge that voting machines also carry risks, which is why they do not rely on them alone to ensure voting accuracy. Safeguards such as physical security, equipment testing, ballot backups, and post-election audits help detect device errors or threats.

But it is unclear what the administration is doing to facilitate their efforts. Earlier this month, Trump ousted members of the bipartisan Federal Election Commission, which distributes federal grants to states, oversees testing of voting systems and maintains the national voter registration form, after the group resisted his efforts to require would-be voters to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.

He watches: Trump fires Election Commission members in the latest attempt to control the voting process

Trump also cut millions of dollars in federal funding from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, which helped state and local election officials maintain election security, and disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those targeting U.S. elections.

The documents repeatedly point to the risks posed by large databases of voter information, including registration databases and election websites that could be accessed or manipulated by foreign adversaries.

But the SAVE system, which Trump has been pressing states to adopt, has been criticized as an illegal, centralized federal database of voter information, which could be another target.

Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi, Ali Swenson, Katie Vogel and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.