A declassified intelligence assessment from the Director of National Intelligence says that China did not try to interfere in the 2020 election, despite a barrage of statements from the Trump administration last year. In the run up to the election, former Trump national security officials, from national security adviser Robert O’Brien to then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, accused China of meddling. But a new assessment released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence claimed that the intel community has assessed with “high confidence” that Beijing “did not deploy interference efforts” and did not view a particular election outcome as “being advantageous enough to risk getting caught meddling.”

The assessment highlights what TheWashington Post first reported was a bitter clash between career intelligence analysts and Trump admin appointees over a possible Chinese influence campaign in the 2020 election. An ombudsman’s report for the ODNI found that the issue of intelligence on possible Chinese meddling yielded “mischaracterization of IC analytic assessments by ODNI officials” and analysts changing their analyses to avoid them being exaggerated or mischaracterized.

The intelligence community also assessed that “Russian President Putin authorized... influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump” as well as undermining confidence in the election and sowing division within the US.