Donald Trump Justice Department interference is now tied to a failure to release the post-2024 election threat assessment that the law he signed requires to be made public. In his second term, Tulsi Gabbard and Bill Pulte did not release that declassified version to Congress.
The law Trump signed in 2019 requires National Intelligence to send Congress a classified assessment and, within sixty days, share findings with the public to the greatest extent possible consistent with protecting sources and methods. With fewer than a hundred days remaining before the 2026 midterms, the Trump Administration has not provided the congressional intelligence committees with formal written assessments of potential election threats at least a hundred and eighty days before federal elections.
2018 And 2019 Trump Orders
Trump first acted in 2018, when he issued an executive order directing U.S. spy agencies to assess foreign efforts to sway federal elections. He turned that mandate into law in 2019, creating the disclosure process that now sits at the center of the dispute.
That process has two parts. Congress is supposed to receive the classified version, and the public is supposed to get a redacted account when the material can be released without exposing sources and methods.
2022 Midterms Assessment
The clearest recent example came after the 2022 midterms. A declassified and partly redacted assessment, released in 2023, said China had tacitly approved efforts to sway a handful of races and had been involved in an online campaign covertly denigrating Marco Rubio through inauthentic accounts.
The same assessment said Iran had considered distributing propaganda, developing and employing troll teams on social media platforms, and establishing front news agencies to interact with undisclosed media outlets in the United States. It also said Russia sought to denigrate the Democratic Party, while intelligence agencies did not detect concerted efforts to shape outcomes in specific races or hack and leak operations, despite the collection of some potentially compromising material.
Jay Clayton And Congress
The missing release is notable because Trump previously joined a bipartisan effort to strengthen confidence in American democracy after Russia’s attempts to help elect him in the 2016 Presidential election were exposed. In his second term, that earlier posture has collided with the disclosure law he signed, leaving Congress without the written assessment it was meant to receive before the 2026 midterms.
Jay Clayton may still release the declassified post-2024 election threat assessment. For now, the practical effect is simple: Congress and the public do not have the formal election-threat assessment the law envisioned, and the deadline pressure grows as the 2026 midterms draw closer.
