WASHINGTON — The FBI has declassified an intelligence report from August 2020 that details an alleged Chinese Communist Party scheme to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, believed to include plans to mass-produce counterfeit American driver’s licenses to be used by Chinese students in order to facilitate fraudulent mail-in ballots favoring Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

“The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the CCP,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted to X at 10 p.m. Monday. “I have immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to Chairman Grassley for further review.”

The intelligence, which was never fully investigated at the time, was reportedly withdrawn from circulation within U.S. agencies ahead of the fall 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, around the time former FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress there was no known evidence of foreign plots targeting the election.

Reports indicate the FBI’s intelligence pointed to a Chinese state-directed scheme connected to nearly 20,000 fake licenses seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. In a statement to Just the News, which first reported on Patel’s move to share the declassified records with Senator Chuck Grassley, the FBI director said the documents “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.”

Citing officials familiar with the documents, Just the News reported that the August 2020 intelligence was provided by a confidential FBI source who claimed the Chinese government manufactured fake U.S. driver’s licenses as part of a plan to illicitly register or impersonate voters. The report was recalled within weeks, never fully investigated, and flagged as needing further source vetting. Yet the FBI’s sister agency, Customs and Border Protection, had already intercepted thousands of fake licenses—offering a possible corroboration of the claims, officials said.

On July 27, 2020, CBP issued a press release confirming that “since the beginning of the year to June 30,” officers at the International Mail Facility in Chicago had seized “1,513 shipments with fraudulent documents—a total of 19,888 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses.” The agency noted, “The majority of these shipments were arriving from China and Hong Kong, with other seized shipments arriving from Great Britain and South Korea.”

CBP stated that “most were for college-age students,” and that “some licenses shared the same picture but had different biographical data.” The agency further confirmed that “the bar code attached to the Michigan licenses worked,” raising concern that the counterfeit documents were realistic enough to potentially be used in fraudulent transactions.

“The driver’s licenses were for various people in different states with a vast majority destined for neighboring states,” the border protection agency said.

“These fraudulent identity documents can lead to identity theft, worksite enforcement issues, critical infrastructure protection vulnerabilities, and fraud linked to immigration-related crimes such as human smuggling and human trafficking,” CBP’s statement continued, adding, “these documents can be used by individuals associated with terrorism to minimize scrutiny from travel screening measures.”

“These counterfeit driver’s licenses can lead to disastrous consequences,” said Ralph Piccirilli, the acting area port director in Chicago.

Reuters, in a fact-check published on September 10, 2020, reviewed online speculation linking the CBP seizure to Democratic election fraud efforts and found “no evidence” that the licenses were intended for use in any voting scheme. “The press release stated that most had come from China and Hong Kong, as well as Great Britain and South Korea, and that they were largely for students,” Reuters reported. “There is no apparent connection to Democratic Party registration or the upcoming election.”

Senator Grassley, to whom the FBI delivered the declassified documents, has confirmed receipt and indicated he will review the material. Patel attributed the disclosure to Grassley’s longstanding oversight role. “Thanks to Chairman Grassley’s oversight and cooperation,” Patel said, “the FBI continues to provide unprecedented transparency.”

Grassley, who has previously warned of the national security risks posed by the CCP and criticized intelligence failures related to election threats, has not yet issued new public comment. His office has not ruled out potential hearings or further oversight proceedings.

The declassified report’s allegations mark the first time a direct Chinese operation to influence U.S. ballots in 2020 has been officially alleged, albeit belatedly. Until now, public disclosures about foreign meddling in the 2020 election focused largely on Russia and Iran—countries that U.S. intelligence agencies said actively sought to sway American voters or hack political targets. By contrast, China’s role was believed to be limited to rhetoric and cyber-espionage.

In March 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded with “high confidence” that Beijing did not attempt to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

“We assess that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” an unclassified 2021 summary report from the National Intelligence Council stated. “China sought stability in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught.”

The report added, “We did not identify China attempting to interfere with election infrastructure or provide funding to any candidates or parties.” The Intelligence Community assessed that Chinese state media criticism of the Trump administration’s policies related to China and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic remained consistent in the lead-up to the election and was aimed at shaping perceptions of U.S. policies and bolstering China’s global position.

Instead, Chinese efforts were observed primarily in the form of propaganda and cyber activities aimed at “swaying U.S. voters’ preferences and perspectives” and shaping U.S. policy, without explicitly favoring one candidate through covert action, the report said.

Given that context, the FBI’s newly disclosed documents could prompt congressional scrutiny over longstanding divisions among American intelligence agencies on politically sensitive issues—a dynamic that may also have played out in conflicting assessments of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Patel’s remarks, which some Democrats may argue align politically with President Trump, suspicions of a Chinese ballot fraud scheme did circulate within certain intelligence channels ahead of the 2020 election, even though those concerns were never fully pursued.