On June 16, FBI Director Kash Patel released a statement on X claiming to have found documents from the Biden administration detailing “alarming allegations” of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in the 2020 US elections, saying "FBI leadership withheld the facts and misled the public on China’s 2020 election interference."
Predictably, the claim won support from some media outlets and condemnation from others.
The FBI report alleges the CCP sent fake driver’s licenses to Chinese sympathizers in the US to cast fraudulent votes for former President Joe Biden. It is now in the hands of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
The FBI Internal Intelligence Report (IRR) was created just a month after US Customs and Border Protection officers at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport’s International Mail Facility seized almost 20,000 fraudulent driver’s licenses; (most appeared to be for college-age students).
Another X post from Patel, and exclusive reporting from Daily Mail (Right bias), allege that the FBI’s report was buried for political gain. Patel accused Biden of seeking to protect former FBI Director Christopher Wray from charges of perjury following testimony to Congress where he claimed China was not conducting a foreign influence campaign in US elections.
On June 26, the President of The Oversight Project, Mike Howell, sent a referral request to the Department of Justice asking for the investigation, and if warranted, the prosecution of Wray for “probable criminal violations arising from false and misleading testimony” provided to Congress on several different occasions.
Chairman Grassley has requested additional information relevant to the decision by former FBI leadership to recall the IRR, as well as information regarding the veracity of the allegations set forth within it. It is yet unclear whether any further information has been provided.
Split Media Narratives
Coverage from the left and right has framed the developments very differently.
Coverage from the left portrayed the allegations as the latest baseless conspiracy theory in a series of far-fetched theories from conservatives. Outlets like the New York Times (Lean Left) said the “partisan showmen” are struggling to bolster an audience captivated by false narratives now that they are “placed in positions previously held by people with greater experience.”
The Times said leaders like Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, “earned their bona fides in Mr. Trump’s camp by promoting conspiracy theories” and “pledging to reveal deep-state secrets,” but are now “running what amounts to a conspiracy theory fulfillment center with unstocked shelves.”
Mother Jones (Left) discussed how the “MAGAfied” leaders plan to reopen Biden-era investigations surrounding who planted pipe bombs outside the DNC and RNC headquarters in 2021, who leaked the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, and who left a bag of cocaine in the White House in 2023. The article goes on to say the “primary mission isn’t to actually prove these claims,” but rather to continue rolling out new claims “at such a pace that no one has time to track any previous promises.”
NBC News (Lean Left) framed the developments as “2020 election conspiracy theories” and highlighted the “unverified” and “unsubstantiated” nature of the allegations. The article noted that the claim promoted by Patel is from an “unidentified confidential human source” and said the seized licenses were for college-age students, a group it said “has historically sought licenses with fake birthdays so underage students can get into bars and purchase alcohol.”
Coverage from the right, on the other hand, tended to treat the allegations much more seriously, diving into the specifics of how many licenses were seized, and the timing of the decision to recall the IRR, with Wray’s testimony before Congress.
The Daily Mail article highlighted sources who said FBI bosses allegedly “shut down” the “legitimate investigation” to “shield Wray from fallout,” saying they were told by headquarters to “pull the report and pretend it didn’t exist.” The article noted the specifics of Wray’s testimony before Congress, where he said, “we have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it’s by mail or otherwise,” while calling Patel’s claim a “bombshell” which shows Wray intentionally lied under oath.
Fox News (Right) reviewed the declassified document and explained the warning section that states the information is not to be treated as “finally evaluated intelligence.” The article went on to note that information from the document details that “China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts” to “use real US persons’ information to create the fraudulent driver's license.”
Fox added that according to Notations from the FBI on the document, the bureau had some unanswered questions. One of these questions was surrounding how China would have obtained address information from TikTok, as “a person's address information was not a valid field when creating a TikTok account.” The document, according to Fox, states a Substantive Recall was issued on September 25, 2020, and noted this as the day after Wray testified before Congress, where he denied any coordinated voter fraud.
Fox also explained in the piece that Grassley is now seeking more information related to the decision of former leadership to “destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computing holdings.” Grassley is reportedly also demanding that Patel “turn over all records relating to the follow-up interview” with the anonymous source as well as “all investigative steps the FBI has taken, or will take, to determine the veracity of the allegations.”
The biases of news outlets can drive decisions on not just what information makes it into articles, but also how that information is framed and what gets highlighted the most prominently.
In this case, the left has chosen to omit many of the alleged details from the report and subsequent investigations while claiming that conspiracy theories are driving the leadership to hold their audience captivated and interested in the next big allegation. In other cases, the right has chosen to treat unsubstantiated claims as hard evidence, jumping to conclusions before the proper investigative authorities have had the chance to analyze the information and make sound judgments based on it.
Such instances demonstrate why it’s important to consume media from all sides of the political spectrum and refrain from reaching conclusions based on claims not fully investigated, or dismissing information simply because it does not fit a certain agenda.
Johnathon Held is a News and Bias Assistant at AllSides. He has a Lean Right bias.
Reviewed and edited by Product Manager Evan Wagner (Lean Left bias) and Editor-in-chief Henry A. Brechter (Center).
