Donald Trump will Trump addresses the nation on Thursday night about newly declassified intelligence tied to the 2020 election. The White House says he will also discuss voting machine vulnerabilities that officials say could permit foreign cyber intrusion.
Trump is expected to use the speech to press his claim that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden because of massive fraud. Numerous courts, ballot audits and his first-term Justice Department found no evidence of such fraud, and federal, state and local officials called the vote “the most secure in American history.”
John Solomon and the declassification push
The address follows a year-long effort by the administration to increase federal oversight of election administration and reshape the way Americans vote. Trump said last month that he had authorized Bill Pulte to declassify documents related to the 2020 vote, after he appointed Pulte as Tulsi Gabbard’s interim replacement.
John Solomon is working on the effort and requested access to files tied to a 2021 intelligence analysis that said no foreign actor had tried or succeeded in altering any technical aspect of the 2020 vote. That detail matters because the speech is built around declassified material, but the administration has not publicly set out which files Trump will describe on Thursday night.
White House and election officials
The White House also says the speech will focus on claimed voting machine flaws that could allow foreign cyber intrusion. Election officials, by contrast, say machines are adequately secure and that no evidence has been found of foreign intrusions that changed results of past elections.
A forensic analysis submitted last year by Mojave Research found flaws in voting machines seized in Puerto Rico, but it found no evidence of hacking. Tulsi Gabbard produced a report that outlined significant vulnerabilities in voting machines and further safeguards that could be implemented, and the White House has delayed releasing that report.
The clash is likely to land in Washington as Republicans control Congress and the November midterm elections approach. Democrats and some election security experts have said they fear the administration plans to interfere in the November midterm elections, while election officials are already publicly disputing the premise that prior vote results were changed by foreign intrusion.
Trump’s speech on Thursday night is the first public test of what the declassified files actually add to a dispute that has already produced court defeats, audits and competing assessments of election security. The immediate question is whether he will present new material or return to a claim that federal and state officials have already rejected.
