President Donald Trump used newly declassified intelligence Thursday night to revive his claims about 2020 election issues, pointing to findings that China possessed or analyzed more than 200 million U.S. voter records. But the documents do not appear to subvert the intelligence community’s prior conclusions that China did not alter votes or interfere with the results of the election.

The declassified records provide substantially more detail about Chinese intelligence collection involving U.S. voter data and reveal internal debate within the intelligence community over how analysts should characterize Beijing’s election-related activities.

But many of the documents reviewed by Nextgov/FCW do not appear to contradict the intelligence community’s longstanding public conclusion that it found no evidence that China altered voting systems, changed ballots, or interfered with the mechanics of the 2020 election.

In a speech to the nation, Trump used the disclosure to press Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, casting the records as evidence of broad weaknesses in U.S. election systems and arguing that tighter federal voting requirements are needed ahead of future elections. The SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo identification to vote in federal elections, but it faces steep odds in Congress.

“We will be working closely to mitigate any harm, and we’re taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected, so it can never be bought, it can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again,” Trump said.

The documents suggest Chinese intelligence used U.S. voter-registration information for identity matching and political analysis, while also collecting other large sets of Americans’ personal data. But they do not show that China altered voter rolls, manipulated ballots or changed the election’s outcome.

In April 2020, intelligence agencies concluded that Beijing analyzed several states’ voter registration datasets to conduct public opinion analysis on the 2020 election, but the publicly released intelligence did not establish that China stole the data.

“China has all along adhered to the principle of non-interference in other’s internal affairs. The U.S. election is an internal matter of the U.S. Its outcome is determined by the votes of the American people. China has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the U.S.,” Chinese embassy spokesperson Liu Chang said in a statement.

Some of the newly declassified records appear to bolster rather than overturn the intelligence community’s earlier public findings. An August 2020 National Intelligence Council assessment concluded that China preferred Trump’s defeat but “did not intend to try to affect the election,” while separately warning that Russian actors were already amplifying claims that mail-in voting would lead to fraud and that U.S. elections were “rigged” months before Americans cast their ballots.

That same assessment did warn that foreign actors could exploit poorly secured election infrastructure and potentially manipulate vote-counting systems in isolated cases. But it also drew clear limits around that risk: a coordinated effort to change results at scale would be difficult, audits and paper records would likely detect it and attacks on results-reporting systems would probably delay publication rather than affect certified totals.

Trump also said a separate DHS review had identified approximately 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections, though it’s not clear how that finding was reached. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and studies and audits have generally found such voting to be rare.

“Foreign countries have tried to interfere in elections for years. This is not new,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee. “His repackaging of old lies with old, cherry-picked intelligence to try to confuse the American people will not change the outcome of the 2020 election, will not change the outcome of the nearly 60 lawsuits rejecting his election fraud claims, and will not change the fact that the 2020 election was secure.”

The U.S. intelligence community has previously disagreed over how to characterize China’s actions during the 2020 election. A declassified intelligence assessment released in 2021 concluded that China considered, but ultimately did not undertake, influence efforts intended to change the presidential election’s outcome.

The assessment also found no indication that China or any other foreign actor attempted to alter election infrastructure like vote tabulation machines. Intelligence agencies instead assessed that Beijing continued longstanding efforts to collect information on U.S. voters, public opinion, political parties and candidates while seeking to shape American policy through economic pressure, lobbying and other traditional tools. 

Not everyone inside the intelligence community agreed with the assessment’s conclusion on Chinese influence. The National Intelligence Officer for Cyber issued a minority view concluding that China had taken at least some steps to undermine Trump’s reelection prospects, primarily through social media, official statements and state media. The dissent still agreed there was no information suggesting Beijing tried to interfere with election processes.

At the time, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe — now Trump’s CIA director — backed that minority view in a memorandum attached to the assessment, arguing the broader intelligence community had not fully or accurately described the scope of China’s activity. Ratcliffe cited an intelligence community ombudsman’s findings that analysts had applied terminology inconsistently, that alternative assessments had faced institutional pressure and that some analysts working on the majority view did not have access to all relevant compartmented reporting.

Several of the declassified records focus on the process behind producing intelligence assessments. Emails declassified Thursday night show officials ultimately agreed to publish a separate alternative analysis, placing the dissenting view on the record without holding up the intelligence community’s broader assessment.

Ratcliffe ultimately concluded that China sought to influence the 2020 election. But neither his memorandum nor the minority assessment concluded that Beijing altered votes, manipulated vote counting or interfered with the technical administration of the election.

“I have long publicly highlighted China’s nefarious efforts to influence the 2020 election against President Trump, as evidenced by my dissent to the flawed January 2021 Intelligence Community Assessment. The documents declassified today shed further light on China’s intentions,” Ratcliffe said in a statement after the speech.

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China’s military advancements justify the Space Force’s $71 billion budget request, the White House nominee to lead the service said during a short and uncontentious Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

“I would say that the $71.1 billion that the president has asked for is exactly what we need,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, who currently serves as the deputy chief of space operations for operations at the Pentagon. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it was “needed because of the threat from China and Russia, and the capabilities that the joint forces needs.”

The Space Force’s budget request was thrown into uncertainty earlier this week when House leaders said they would not fully comply with the Trump administration’s proposal to provide much of the money through reconciliation—a partisan-controlled budget maneuver rarely used for defense spending before last year. Under the proposal, reconciliation would have funded some of the service’s most ambitious programs, including the Space Data Network and Golden Dome.

On Thursday, Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Schiess that his service is underfunded at the moment, but said that it would be adequately resourced if the House and Senate passed the Trump administration’s budget request. The three-star general agreed. 

The White House tapped Schiess in April to serve as the next chief of space operations, Defense One first reported. The three-star officer would replace Gen. Chance Saltzman, who announced in London this week that he will retire next month. 

Schiess said in written testimony to the Committee that the services budget, people, and platforms need to grow to support major joint operations. The military’s space forces have been praised as the “first movers” during the war in Iran and crucial to the administration’s operation in Venezuela.

“The most significant challenge is balancing urgent readiness for a contested space domain today with the modernization required to win tomorrow,” Schiess wrote. “Our adversaries are fielding counterspace capabilities at a rapidly increasing pace that are designed to hold U.S. and allied satellites at risk, while also building space-enabled kill chains to threaten our Joint Force.”

If confirmed, Schiess said in written testimony that his first year would focus on improving combat readiness, prioritizing operational testing, building up space launch infrastructure, and expanding facilities.

The service has budgeted upwards of 100 national security space launches over the next five years, and a recent service planning document estimates its two main launch bases will send as many as 3,000 commercial and military rockets into the skies each year by 2036.

Schiess said in his written statements that “the most pressing issue” he wants to address is “scaling to meet the unprecedented increase in launch tempo, as well as the exponential growth in commercial missions” including the use of super-heavylift rockets to “unlock new possibilities for the Space Force.

Schiess added in written and verbal testimony that he “would have no hesitation” in providing his best military advice “even when that advice differs from the views of the Chairman, other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of War, President, or other leaders.”

This basic requirement of the job has come under pressure during the second Trump administration. The Pentagon’s political leaders “have created a command climate that penalizes the honest evaluations of the military about issues on which the military is expert and the civilians are not,” AEI’s Kori Schake, an expert on civil-military relations, told The Atlantic recently. “That’s very dangerous,” she said. “That’s how you lose wars.”

Only six Senators asked Schiess questions during the roughly 40-minute hearing. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told the general that bodes well for his likely confirmation. 

“The fact that we didn't have a large turnout is an indication, I believe, of the committee's confidence in you,” King said. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., added “being non-controversial is not a bad thing.”

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To Megan Fotheringham, a small, circular plaque represents what the United States lost when the Trump administration shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development last year.

The plaque "was given to a USAID foreign service advisor in 1976 after the first recognized Ebola outbreak was contained in Zaire. For me, it represents 50 years of U.S. commitment to stop Ebola at its source before it reaches our shores,” Fotheringham, who served as the deputy director in USAID's Office of Infectious Disease, told a crowd assembled before the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. “This plaque was on my desk during what became USAID's last Ebola response effort. When I was allowed back in my office for 15 minutes to collect my things, this was the very first thing that I grabbed because it is just symbolic of everything that was being lost.”

There’s currently an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa, and public health experts have argued that the Trump administration’s decision to fold USAID into the State Department, which pushed out nearly all USAID employees, has hindered response efforts. 

Fotheringham was one of several former federal employees who relatd their experiences at the event recognizing the one-year anniversary of the layoff of some 1,350 people at the State Department. Speakers, including union officials and members of Congress, contended that the staff reductions are damaging the United States' global standing. 

The layoffs were "unfair to individuals who had built up experience and careers over a period of time. It disrupted their lives in a way that they should never have had to experience and hurt their families,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “But they would be the first to tell you that, most of all, what it did was hurt our country. It hurt our capacity to advance our interests and values overseas.” 

In particular, speakers cited negotiations to end the war in Iran as a process that is being hampered by there being fewer career foreign affairs staffers. 

“Instead of sending someone that's competent that knows how to write an [a memorandum of understanding], they sent two real estate developers — who have no idea what diplomacy is about — to write an MOU,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. 

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom are real estate developers, are spearheading the peace negotiations with Iran. Hostilities recently resumed in that war after the collapse of a ceasefire. 

While the Trump administration has argued that cuts to the government workforce in general are necessary to improve efficiency, Maryum Saifee, a former foreign service officer, said that feds with relevant expertise have been ordered not to work. 

“When war broke out in Iran, many of us — foreign service officers — [our jobs] were still sitting in limbo. I'm fluent in Arabic. I served in Baghdad. So some of us volunteered to staff the evacuation task force,” she said. “Guess what the department did? They said ‘No thank you.’ So we just sat on the sidelines.” 

Additionally, an information panel set up next to the press conference speakers reported that, as result of job cuts at State’s Bureau of Energy Resources, “the office built to weaken Iran’s oil leverage and keep [the Strait of] Hormuz open was shuttered seven months before the conflict that saw gas prices spike.” 

In response to a request for comment, the State Department praised career employees’ roles in responding to 2025 Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and upholding a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand. 

"The RIFs have not had any negative impact on our ability to respond to operations, our ability to plan and our ability to execute in service to Americans,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Government Executive. “In fact, we have been able to respond quicker and more effectively, which was the entire point of the reorg — to empower personnel in the field while allowing us to move at the 'speed of relevancy.'"

At Thursday’s press conference, Democratic lawmakers also expressed optimism that laid off State and USAID employees could someday rejoin the federal workforce. 

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., touted new legislation that would exempt foreign service officers who were involuntarily separated or retired between Jan. 20, 2025, and Jan. 31, 2030, from having to take any written or oral test if they want to rejoin. 

“There’s no reason you have to take the [Foreign Service Officer Test] again when you come back in,” Beyer said. “But I’m sure you’d pass it.”

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LONDON—Ukraine is making a thousand times more drones now than when Russia invaded four years ago—and NATO must learn how, the alliance’s deputy military commander said Thursday. 

“In 2022, Ukraine produced 5,000 drones, various. In 2026, they will produce, and I'm afraid I can't give the figure, but let's just say it is going to be well north of 5 million, of all flavors,” Air Chief Marshal Johnny Stringer told attendees at the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference “So, for NATO nations, if 32 nations can't kind of meet those figures, then frankly, what do we do?”

The U.S. war on Iran has shown how quickly a conflict can consume arsenals of costly, exquisite weapons, Stringer said.

“Op Epic Fury has obviously had an impact on munitions as well, so assumptions that we may have had even months, not even a year ago, about what would be available when are now, in a sense, a little bit moot,” he said.

“These things cost a fortune,” he added. “You have to have them, but there's a bunch of other things you can get in far greater numbers with a little bit more imagination.”

The U.S. military has heavily depleted its critical munition stockpiles during the Iran war. Coalition forces fired over 11,000 munitions in the first 16 days of the conflict, at a cost of about $26 billion, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

The leader of the Royal Air Force struck similar notes in his own speech. 

Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth praised the “overwhelmingly lethality” of the U.S. and allied use of airpower during Epic Fury, but he also pointed out problems with the operation.

“The Iran conflict has also exposed the opposite side to that point: the saturation and sheer weight of modern retaliatory attacks. Air forces had to intercept a torrent of hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of attack drones,” Smyth said. “More Patriots were fired in the first few days of this campaign than during the last four and a half years in Ukraine. This is a sobering reminder of the importance of magazine depth, even in a short form.”

The U.S. war also ate into fleets of exquisite aircraft. At least 42 aircraft have been destroyed or damaged, according to a Congressional Research Service report. This includes fighters like the F-35 and critical radar aircraft like the E-3 Sentry airborne early warning-and-control system. 

Stringer said countries that are looking at sixth-generation aircraft should be cautious.

“A lot of discussion on sixth-gen seems to be almost solely about flashy aircraft,” Stringer said. “We have to define what we actually mean by sixth-gen air warfare, and then we can build the right mix of systems.”

The U.S. war in Iran has stretched on for more than four months, and no immediate diplomatic end to the conflict has emerged. Stringer ended his speech by pointing to Epic Fury as an example of how the changing threat environment means the U.S. can’t quite manage two ongoing conflicts at once.

“A younger, better-looking, and thinner version of me that joined the air force joined it at a time when U.S. doctrine could reasonably expect to fight and win two separate theater campaigns,” Stringer said. “We are no longer in that place, and what you're seeing through the likes of Epic Fury, but elsewhere, just geopolitics full-stop, and the demand signals being placed on air and space forces, means that simultaneity is now a thing. It's not actually an abstract concept. Which means we're going to have to prioritize. We're going to have to make choices.”

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the U.S. Air Force’s chief of staff, told attendees that Epic Fury “demonstrated the ability of modern air and space power to generate effects across vast distances at a speed unmatched by any other form of military power.”

Wilsbach also praised allies' support during the war in Iran, adding, “The most effective air power is combined air power.” 

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