Do declassified files support Trump's election security claims?

Do declassified files support Trump's election security claims?Image source, Getty ImagesByAnthony Zurcher, Lucy Gilder, Tom Edgington and Jake HortonNorth America Correspondent and BBC VerifyPublished5 minutes agoIn a 26-minute speech from the White House, President Donald Trump revived some familiar claims about US election fraud and interference.Standing in the East Room – the same venue where Barack Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 - Trump said the current election system was "catastrophically short" of being secure and that hundreds of declassified intelligence files would reveal these "shocking vulnerabilities".BBC Verify has reviewed these documents, although some of them have been heavily redacted.There appear to be no bombshell revelations and no evidence that interference or fraud actually changed the outcome of previous elections - including the 2020 contest which Trump lost.Here are some key themes.What do files show about Chinese interference?Many of Donald Trump's most successful political narratives have a villain – a malign actor that presents a pressing threat that demands attention.In Thursday night's speech, China took centre stage as Trump's villain and he presented Beijing as a nefarious force engaging in "sinister election meddling". The released documents provide support for claims that China took steps to acquire voter data – some of which is in the public domain or available for purchase – and explored ways to influence public opinion.That's well short of the kind of election tampering that Trump at times implied and smaller in scale than actions taken by Russia in 2016, which received a single mention from the president.A previously released 2021 report by the US National Intelligence Council, external (NIC) found with "high confidence" that China did not interfere in the 2020 US election.In his address Trump said: "Over a period of years starting du...