Trump Spares Beijing In Probe Of Alleged Chinese Election Plot

The White House appears to be shielding China from scrutiny in President Donald Trump’s push to get to the bottom of what he has declared an official cover-up of Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election.

While Trump said in his Thursday speech to the nation that he had ordered the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to investigate what he calls an official cover-up of China’s activities, there’s so far been no mention of Beijing as a target of that probe or others.

DOJ said in a statement that it’s “following through on the president's directive,” but declined to comment whether its investigation will extend to Chinese election meddling. The FBI, ODNI and CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This isn’t a story about China,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters Friday. He said the focus of investigations will be on “nefarious actors domestically” who worked to undermine the election’s integrity. The White House declined to comment on whether it plans to go after Beijing for any of the crimes it is alleging.

Democrats are seizing on the lack of action against China as proof that Trump is more interested in using his accusations of an official cover-up of Beijing’s interference to punish perceived political enemies within the intelligence community.

“He is using China to advance a political end, not to raise meaningful national security concerns,” said Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Select Committee on China. “He is weaponizing the U.S.-China relationship to undermine and control the elections.”

Trump’s accusations coincide with his drive for warmer relations with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the aftermath of a bruising series of trade and tariff disputes last year. The two leaders met in May, and Trump came home touting deals for agricultural commodities and Boeing aircraft. Trump and Xi are set to meet again in Washington in September.

The White House said in a statement that the summit “continues as scheduled,” but declined to comment on whether Trump plans to bring up the charges of election meddling.

Trump’s claims about China undermining the U.S. election have been repeatedly debunked through investigations by agencies including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI. The intelligence community concluded in 2021 that China “considered but did not deploy” election influence operations because it favored neither Trump nor then-President Joe Biden.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters Friday that Trump’s comments were a “false allegation and serious smear” but didn’t hint at wider damage to the U.S.-China relationship. The Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to provide further comment.

A Washington-based Asian diplomat who regularly interacts with Chinese diplomats and granted anonymity to speak candidly said they were hearing that Beijing wasn’t particularly rankled by Trump’s speech.

“China is pushing back hard in words, but they are still open to talks,” the person said. “This is noise, not something that will break the September summit.”

Khanna said that he will direct the China committee to investigate Trump’s claims of Chinese interference “now or when in the majority.” Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some Republicans are urging the administration to look more closely at China’s influence on elections.

The government “needs to do a better job of understanding and disrupting the Chinese Communist Party’s plans,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). “Everyone — from Congress, to the president, to state and local officials, to FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the intelligence community — must have a common understanding of where we’ve failed and succeeded in the past and how to plan accordingly.”

The apparent contradiction in Trump’s accusations of Chinese election tampering while pursuing closer ties with Beijing rankled China hawks in Washington.

“If the president really believes that China was so opposed to him that they tried to swing the election against him in his first term, why is he seeking stable great power relations with Xi Jinping right now?” said Michael Sobolik, a former national security staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “Why did he allow ByteDance to keep control of TikTok's algorithm? Why is he selling high-end AI chips to China? Why is he revoking a Hong Kong emergency order?”

Trump accused Beijing of “the largest compromise of election data in history” that included efforts to produce “illegal ballots for Joe Biden.” Those moves were part of a plot to ensure he lost the 2020 election as a reprisal for his aggressive trade policy toward China, he added.

Those claims fell flat with intelligence experts.

“Every bit of intelligence has been reviewed a million times, and it's never turned up anything on China,” said Dennis Wilder, former National Security Council director for China under the George W. Bush administration.

“Unless there's a smoking gun somewhere that someone can produce that no one ever looked at, which seems highly unlikely, this thing doesn't go anywhere.”