Trump declassified documents claiming massive Chinese interference in the 2020 US election (including the acquisition of 220 million voter files), alongside other alleged vulnerabilities and suppression by US intelligence, as part of a prime-time address fixating on the 2020 results.

The article notes that official US intelligence assessments (including a 2021 NIC report) contradict or downplay these claims, finding no evidence that China (or others) changed vote counts, though adversaries have capabilities to compromise infrastructure.

Critics argue the move serves as a distraction from policy failures (e.g., Iran) and continues Trump’s pattern of questioning electoral legitimacy, potentially undermining future elections and democratic trust.

He has never been able to accept it, but even after winning the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump continued to fixate on the election result of 2020, when he lost to the Democratic contender, Joe Biden.  In doing so, he mirrors the anxieties of the Democrats who lost in 2016 to Trump, forever leaving Hillary Clinton convinced that her defeat was due, not to her own failings but to the dark machinations of the Kremlin and any other number of rogue outfits tampering with the US elections.  The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment accepted that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election” but made no assessment that it altered the eventual vote count.  The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, despite identifying Russian “cyberactivity directed at state election infrastructure” and various “intelligence-related activities targeting the US voting process” failed to find “evidence that votes were changed and found that, on balance, the diversity of [American] voting infrastructure is a strength.”     

The theme of robbery through ballot interference has become an American staple.  For Trump, its mother’s milk, a suitable distraction to his other policy failings.  His Iran stratagem has collapsed, with Tehran and........

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