FBI Director Kash Patel has turned over a batch of internal documents to Congress detailing allegations that Chinese operatives sought to interfere in the 2020 election by mass-producing fake U.S. driver’s licenses to facilitate fraudulent mail-in voting.
The intelligence, which Patel said on Monday night he had recently declassified, has been sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who has led oversight efforts into foreign election interference and pressed the bureau to release details surrounding the alleged scheme.
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“The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the [Chinese Communist Party],” Patel said in a post on X. “I have immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to the Chairman Grassley for further review.”
According to a spokesperson for Patel, the materials include claims from a confidential source that China-backed actors planned to use counterfeit identity documents to submit thousands of mail-in ballots on behalf of then-candidate Joe Biden. While exact details remain murky, the alleged effort centered on creating and shipping thousands of bogus licenses into the United States ahead of the election.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reportedly seized nearly 20,000 fake licenses around August 2020, coinciding with when federal authorities first became aware of the threat. However, the FBI intelligence reports were later recalled under unclear circumstances.
“These include allegations of plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver’s licenses and ship them into the United States for the purpose of facilitating fraudulent mail-in ballots — allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public,” Patel told Just The News, which first reported the alleged Chinese election subversion plot.
Grassley’s office confirmed receiving the documents and is pushing for further disclosures.
“Chairman Grassley is in receipt of an FBI document responsive to a request he made based on legally protected whistleblower disclosures,” a Grassley spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “The document alleges serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI. Grassley is requesting additional documentation from the FBI to verify the production, and is urging the FBI to do its due diligence to investigate why the document was recalled, who recalled it, and inform the American people of its findings.”
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Lawmakers have long raised red flags about China’s role in producing fake U.S. documents. More than a decade ago, Grassley and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) urged the Chinese government to crack down on the illicit manufacturing of fraudulent IDs, citing incidents such as the confiscation of 1,700 fake driver’s licenses at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Patel, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to replace former director Chris Wray earlier this year, has prioritized increasing transparency and responding more fully to congressional inquiries that past bureau leaders were accused of stonewalling.