The FBI shut down an investigation into an alleged Chinese Communist Party plot to interfere with the 2020 election because the scheme would have contradicted then-FBI Director Christopher Wray’s congressional testimony, newly released documents show.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) released internal FBI documents Tuesday showing how the FBI suppressed intelligence about a suspected CCP attempt to create fake drivers licenses and manufacture mail-in votes for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The FBI suppressed an intelligence report from the Albany, N.Y., field office produced in summer 2020 based on information from a confidential human source alleging the Chinese government was producing “tens of thousands” of drivers licenses for the scheme. But the document was buried and its allegations were never investigated because of Wray’s September 2020 congressional testimony claiming there were no historical evidence of nationwide mail-in voter fraud campaigns.
“Now, we have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise,” Wray told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
When pressed, Wray told the committee the FBI would “investigate seriously” any evidence of widespread voter fraud by mail.
After the intelligence document was recalled, an FBI Albany intelligence analyst voiced displeasure to colleagues in an October 2020 email because of the politics involved with suppressing the report.
“Most concerning to me, is stating the reporting would contradict with Director Wray’s testimony. I found this troubling because it implied to me that one of the reasons we aren’t putting this out is for a political reason, which goes directly against our organization’s mission to remain apolitical and simply state what we know,” the FBI analyst wrote to Albany colleagues.
“Likewise, at the field operational level, I do not feel it is our job to assess whether or not our intelligence aligns with the Director,” the analyst added.
The FBI Albany office re-interviewed the confidential informant and it generated additional context to support the allegations. The documents show an FBI Albany official believed the source was “competent” and “authentic” in their statements. The source was “very confident” in the subsourcing that brought about the allegations.
Officials from FBI headquarters, including deputy assistant director of the counterintelligence division Nikki Floris, ordered the Albany field office to recall the intelligence document, Grassley’s records show. Separately, Floris played a role in undermining Grassley and Ron Johnson’s effort to investigate the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
“These records smack of political decision-making and prove the Wray-led FBI to be a deeply broken institution. Ahead of a high-stakes election happening amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI turned its back on its national security mission,” Grassley said.
“One way or the other, intelligence must be fully investigated to determine whether it’s true, or if it’s just smoke and mirrors. Chris Wray’s FBI wasn’t looking out for the American people — it was looking to save its own image.”
Grassley previously requested more information and records from FBI Director Kash Patel on why the intelligence document was destroyed and the extent to which the bureau investigated its allegations. Grassley originally requested the documents based on whistleblower disclosures his office received.
“In 2020, facts about CCP election interference were buried by FBI leadership for political convenience. Thanks to relentless oversight from @ChuckGrassley and the hard work of our FBI team, the truth is finally coming to light. We’re restoring trust—through transparency, not politics,” Patel said on X last month.
The China division of the FBI’s foreign influence task force never took steps to meaningfully investigate the allegations of attempted Chinese election interference, the bureau confirmed to Grassley in late June.
“However, other than a request for information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we have found no information to indicate that FITF -China aggressively investigated the reported information, despite corroborating intergovernmental reporting and logical investigative leads,” the FBI wrote to Grassley on June 27.
The Trump administration shuttered the foreign influence task force earlier this year because of its role in pressuring social-media platforms to censor speech online, especially the Hunter Biden laptop story.