Grassley releases FBI records on alleged China election meddling probe

Chuck Grassley released internal FBI emails and records on June 16, 2025, and said they showed FBI headquarters interfered with an alleged Chinese election-interference probe. The Iowa Republican’s release put fresh scrutiny on a memo that described a purported scheme by China to meddle in the 2020 presidential election.

The memo, which had already been viewed skeptically by intelligence agents, said Chinese officials were shipping fake driver’s licenses to the United States. In one version of the intelligence, it also alleged a plan to create fake mail-in ballots in 2020. The intelligence was recalled before it could be fully investigated, but it did not stay buried for long once FBI Director Kash Patel declassified or released the documents to Congress.

That disclosure quickly became fuel in a broader fight over the bureau itself. Grassley’s office said the records showed the FBI suppressed intelligence, while critics of the bureau argued that leaders under then-director Christopher Wray were trying to avoid political blowback. Patel, who has faced pressure from the online right to bring more drastic change to the FBI, found the release feeding election conspiracy theories almost immediately.

The dispute landed in a year when U.S. counterintelligence officials had already warned that Russia, China and Iran would all try to interfere in the 2020 election. China, in particular, has long been treated by U.S. officials as a major national-security threat, which made the memo’s claims about counterfeit identity documents politically potent even before investigators had settled their credibility.

Counterfeit IDs were already a real problem. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it seized 14,504 fraudulent driver’s licenses and other identification items at the Port of Cincinnati in 2020, and more than 97% of the fake documents seized there originated in China and Hong Kong. Four U.S. senators later asked the Chinese Embassy to crack down on a flood of high-quality fake IDs entering the United States.

Still, counterfeit documents do not automatically prove election fraud. A separate fact-check found that fake IDs seized at Chicago airport were not proof that they were all registered to vote. That gap between a suspicious memo and verified voter fraud is what made Grassley’s records politically explosive, and why the documents moved so quickly from internal skepticism to public ammunition.