US intel hid Chinese 2020 election meddling from Trump because they opposed his policies, memo says

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.

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