FBI Director Kash Patel announced on June 16 that the agency has declassified documents about allegations of Chinese interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Patel said the FBI has provided Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), also chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, information related to alleged involvement by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the election.
“The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the CCP,” Patel wrote on social media platform X on June 16.
“I have immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to the Chairman Grassley for further review.”
Patel did not provide further details about the allegations surrounding the 2020 presidential election or how the CCP allegedly interfered in the election.
Grassley’s office told The Epoch Times in an email that he “is in receipt of an FBI document responsive to a request he made based on legally protected whistleblower disclosures.”
The intelligence information report originated from the agency’s Albany Field Office, which dates back to September 2020, according to his office.
“The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI,” it stated, noting that Grassley is seeking further information from the FBI to verify the document’s production.
In a June 17 letter to Patel, which was seen by The Epoch Times, Grassley stated that the intelligence report indicated it was “recalled in order to re-interview the source,” and instructed that recipients “destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings.”
Grassley has requested that the FBI provide all records related to the re-interview and recall of the report, “including but not limited to all communications between and among agents and intelligence analysts,” according to the letter.
Grassley had previously requested that the FBI produce any records in its possession regarding the foreign business dealings of former President Joe Biden’s family members, including their ties to companies linked to the CCP.
In a 2022 letter, Grassley said the FBI had “significant” and “voluminous evidence” of potential criminal conduct involving the former president’s son, Hunter Biden, and his brother, James Biden, in relation to their business dealings.
“These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them,” Grassley said in the letter.
Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump. Trump challenged the results in some states, alleging voter fraud.
Then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who currently serves as CIA director, alleged in a 2021 letter to Congress that the Chinese regime interfered in the 2020 election.
In the letter, Ratcliffe wrote that “based on all available sources of intelligence, with definitions consistently applied, and reached independent of political considerations or undue pressure … the People’s Republic of China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections.”
Ratcliffe alleged that intelligence about China’s election interference was suppressed by management at the CIA, which pressured analysts to withdraw their support for the view.
Citing a report by the Intelligence Community’s analytic ombudsman, Barry Zulauf, Ratcliffe said that some analysts were reluctant to describe the Chinese regime’s actions as election interference because the analysts disagreed with Trump’s policies.
Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.
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