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2026-03-19 China-Japan-Koreas
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US intel hid Chinese 2020 election meddling from Trump because they opposed his policies, memo says
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[JustTheNews] Dr. Barry A. Zulauf, a member of the Senior National Intelligence Service reported that others in the intelligence community said “I don’t want my intelligence going to the White House where it will be used by that vulgarian in the Oval Office to support policies against China with which I personally disagree.”
Analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community sought to conceal evidence of Chinese influence efforts from President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, with analysts saying they didn’t want their intel used by “that vulgarian in the Oval Office” to pursue policies toward China they personally disagreed with.
The revelation is found within a January 2021 report written by — and never before reported upon comments by — analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, who conducted a review of the spy community’s handling of Russian versus Chinese meddling efforts during the 2020 election. Among his conclusions was that intelligence analysts downplayed China’s actions because they had disdain for the “vulgarian” Trump and did not want to support the policies and priorities of the Trump administration toward China with which they “personally disagree.”
Just the News reported this week that the U.S. intelligence community has known since early 2020 that Beijing also gained access to American voter registration data and used that information to conduct opinion analysis related to the presidential election between Trump and then-former Vice President Joe Biden.
CHINESE GOVERNMENT ELECTION INFLUENCE EFFORTS IN THE 2020 ELECTION
This is not the only piece of evidence pointing to Chinese government election influence efforts in the 2020 election. Although much about China’s activities in 2020 remains classified, Just the News conducted a thorough review of publicly-available intelligence assessments, federal indictments, foreign government warnings, and cybersecurity firm analyses.
There is credible evidence that Chinese government-linked cyber hackers and Chinese social media troll farms took aim at the U.S. presidential election in 2020 and sought to undercut Trump during his run against now-former President Biden. There are also indicators that Chinese intelligence and law enforcement agencies — China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) and its Ministry of Public Security (MPS) — also played a role in 2020.
Zulauf — a longtime intelligence officer — wrote in his January 2021 report: “Given analytic differences in the way Russia and China analysts examined their targets, China analysts appeared hesitant to assess Chinese actions as undue influence or interference. These analysts appeared reluctant to have their analysis on China brought forward because they tended to disagree with the Administration's policies, saying in effect, I don't want our intelligence used to support those policies.”
U.S. INTEL ANALYSTS DOWNPLAYED CHINA ASSESSMENTS TO AVOID HELPING TRUMP
Zulauf discussed his report on a podcast later that year, where he quoted an analyst working on Chinese interference efforts as having essentially said that “I don't want my analysis going to the White House where that vulgarian … in the White House will use it to pursue policies toward China with which I personally disagree.”
An article in the Journal of Intelligence Conflict and Warfare recounted a 2023 speech by Zulauf, who said that the intelligence analyst was quoted as saying that “I don’t want my intelligence going to the White House where it will be used by that vulgarian in the Oval Office to support policies against China with which I personally disagree.”
“Dr. Zulauf went on to point out the various errors in this way of thinking — intelligence belongs to the community, not a single analyst, and further, while analysts are entitled to like or dislike particular leaders, they are not entitled to allow that to alter the intelligence products that they put forward,” the journal article said.
The review by Zulauf also found that allegations of Russian meddling and Chinese meddling were being measured based on differing standards, meaning Russia may have taken actions that were determined to be influence or interference efforts while, if and when China took the same or similar actions, those Chinese actions likely would not have been determined to be influence or interference efforts.
“Due to varying collection and insight into hostile state actors' leadership intentions and domestic election influence campaigns, the definitional use of the terms ‘influence’ and ‘interference’ and associated confidence levels are applied differently by the China and Russia analytic communities,” Zulauf wrote in his report.
The ombudsman found that “the terms were applied inconsistently across the analytic community” and that “failing to explain properly these definitions is inconsistent with Tradecraft Standards.”
“ODNI officials engaging with policymakers said that these customers did notice the result, particularly differences in the volume, frequency, and confidence levels of the intelligence coming from the China and Russia analytic communities on activities that, from their perspective, were very similar in their potential effects,” Zulauf added.
The analytic ombudsman noted that multiple national intelligence officers wrote an “Alternative Analysis Memo” in October 2020 “which expressed alternative views on potential Chinese election influence activities.” Zulauf said that “these alternative views met with considerable organizational counter pressure” but that then-DNI and now-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe agreed with the dissenting alternative views which argued that China had in fact attempted to influence the 2020 election to undercut Trump’s candidacy.
- Majority view said China did not try to influence 2020 elections
- Minority view says China did try to interfere with elections
- Ratcliffe: “China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections”
- China meddled in the Canadian elections in 2019, others even earlier
- China accessed and analyzed U.S. voter registration data in 2020
- Chinese influence operations tied to CCP intel and security services
- Spamouflage and other Chinese actors targeted Trump ahead of 2020 election
- Chinese government’s MPS and MSS both took action during 2020 election
- China’s possible fake mail-in ballot plot
- DOJ and DHS said no foreign government compromised integrity of 2020 elections
- China kept meddling ahead of 2022 midterms — partly due to no fear of any Biden response
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Posted by NoMoreBS 2026-03-19 00:00||
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