A declassified National Intelligence Council memo dated January 15, 2020 — that’s ten months before the election, for those keeping score — warned that U.S. adversaries “have the capability to compromise US election infrastructure for the 2020 presidential election.” Voter registration databases were flagged as “most vulnerable to exploitation.” Poll books, election websites, and voting machines without paper backups were all listed as targets.
But we were the conspiracy theorists. Noted.
For four straight years, anyone who dared question the security of the 2020 election got the full treatment. “Election denier.” “Conspiracy theorist.” “Threat to democracy.” Social media companies nuked your account. Legacy media called you dangerous. The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council — yes, that’s a real thing — declared it the “most secure election in American history.” CISA Director Chris Krebs went on national television and repeated it like a prayer.
And the entire time, sitting in a classified file, was a memo from our own intelligence community saying the exact opposite.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard declassified the memo, and the details are brutal. China gained access to voter registration data across multiple states. They sent fake driver’s licenses to the United States. Iran also breached voter registration systems. All of this happened before anyone told the public a word about it.
Christopher Porter, the NIC’s own cyber analyst who helped produce the assessment, told Just The News: “It is no secret that China and Iran compromise election equipment for a variety of intelligence purposes.” No secret? It was absolutely a secret. We were told it didn’t happen. We were told the systems were bulletproof. We were told that questioning any of it made you a domestic extremist.
Porter also dropped another bomb — he alleges the CIA refused to publicly release declassified reports on Chinese threats to the election even after President Trump issued a direct declassification order. The sitting president told the CIA to release the information, and the CIA said no. Think about that for a second. The Commander-in-Chief ordered transparency and the intelligence community ignored him.
(But Trump was the authoritarian. Right.)
It gets better. The Intelligence Community’s own Analytic Ombudsman — their internal watchdog — found that analysts downplayed China’s actions because of their personal “disdain for Trump.” Not because the intelligence was ambiguous. Not because the evidence was thin. Because the analysts didn’t like the president. They buried election security warnings because releasing them might have helped Trump politically.
So here’s the timeline we’re working with: In January 2020, U.S. intelligence knew foreign adversaries could compromise election systems. In February 2020, they briefed President Trump at the White House. Between then and November 2020 — nothing. No public warning. No transparency. No “hey, voters, you should know that China and Iran have been inside our voter registration databases.” Instead, they waited until after the election and then told everybody it was the most secure vote in history.
The memo didn’t say the election was stolen. Nobody is claiming that today. What the memo proves is that the people who screamed “most secure election ever” knew — because their own analysts told them — that the systems had gaping vulnerabilities. They knew foreign governments had already exploited some of those vulnerabilities. And they chose to say nothing because the wrong guy might have benefited from the truth.
That’s not election security. That’s election narrative management.
We were called every name in the book for asking basic questions. “Were the systems secure?” Conspiracy theorist. “Did foreign actors have access?” Election denier. “Why won’t they release the intelligence?” Dangerous extremist. And now the government’s own documents confirm that every single one of those questions was legitimate.
Not a conspiracy theory. A memo. Their memo. Written by their analysts. Classified by their agencies. And hidden from the American public for six years.
So the next time someone tells you to “trust the experts” and “respect the intelligence community,” remember this — the experts knew, the intelligence community knew, and they looked you dead in the eye and told you everything was fine.
Trust is earned. These people burned theirs to the ground.
