Trump's claims about China interfering in U.S. elections were fact-checked by political analysts in real-time using documents he released.
In Trump's Thursday night speech, he announced that his administration would be releasing documents and intelligence findings that support his claim that China meddled in the 2020 U.S. elections. However, the documents didn't show anything of the sort, analysts noted.
During the speech, CNN senior national security reporter Zachary Cohen pointed out in a post on X that CNN had reviewed documents Trump was talking about in his speech.
The documents "largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and/or are reflected in the 2021 US intel community assessment," Cohen wrote. "None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would've changed the outcome."
Legal analyst Adam Klasfeld similarly explained in a post on X that "Trump is lying about the intelligence community's findings about China's actions in the 2020 election," and shared the files.
One line of findings from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared by Klasfeld read, "We assess 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."
Also looking at one of the documents touted by Trump, reporter Sam Stein wrote, "One of the documents that Trump has disclosed tonight has a section noting that China targeted the BIDEN campaign and does 'not currently intend to covertly interfere to try and sway the outcome of the election."
Political commentator Kyle Griffin noted, "Donald Trump took 18 months to release documents that he now claims show election activities that would have taken place on his watch in 2020."
