China 'meddled in 2020 US election against Donald Trump' claims President in chilling address to nation

Donald Trump has accused China of a campaign of election interference and meddling in a major address to the nation.

The President said Beijing accessed hundreds of millions of American voters' data in what Mr Trump called the "largest compromise" of election data in history.

And he directly accused China of "undermining" both his first administration and his 2020 campaign.

"They did not want Donald Trump to win, and for good reason," the President said.

"Over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history - resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files," he said.

"That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote, and engage in other nefarious activities.

"This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare.

"The intelligence even shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project."

The White House is now set to release a tranche of new documents alleging the US's election system is "broken and vulnerable".

The President also claimed evidence of fraud had been buried by the media, and accused China of paying journalists to write negative stories against him.

And in a chilling revelation, Mr Trump also said hundreds of thousands of non-citizens had been registered on electoral voter rolls.

China's election interference was covered up by the "Deep State in our intelligence agencies", which hid the information from both the President and public, the President said.

Voter data in 18 states had been bought, stolen or hacked by China, the President said new documents will reveal.

"Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden," he added.

"They did not disclose it to me as president, and to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is: 'This is the most secure election in the history of our country.'"

More to follow...