NBC News reveals White House task force gathered thousands of 2020 election intelligence documents for planned declassification
On July 1, 2026, NBC News reported that a White House task force had been secretly collecting thousands of pages of intelligence and law enforcement documents related to the 2020 presidential election, with plans to declassify some material to support President Trump's claims of election fraud. The task force, staffed by loyalists including former Trump national security aide Derek Harvey and right-wing writer John Solomon, drew from the CIA, the NSA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Justice Department. Courts and federal investigators have repeatedly found no evidence of fraud sufficient to alter the 2020 results.
Actors
On July 1, 2026, NBC News revealed that a White House task force had been quietly collecting thousands of pages of intelligence and law enforcement documents — primarily related to the 2020 presidential election — with plans to declassify some of the material to support President Trump's claims about election irregularities and fraud. The task force had been working for months, sometimes late into the night, drawing on the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Justice Department.
The task force was staffed by loyalists including Derek Harvey, a former Trump national security aide, and John Solomon, a right-wing writer and Trump ally. Members were reportedly encouraged to minimize redactions in any declassified documents, including retaining the names of government officials. The team's stated aim was generating declassified material to publicly amplify the president's election fraud narrative — claims courts rejected in more than 60 post-2020 proceedings.
On the same day NBC News published its report, Trump told his newly appointed acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to "declassify whatever you want," explicitly directing him toward 2020 election materials.
Why we recorded this
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies exist to assess genuine threats, not to construct political narratives for a sitting president. A task force drawing on the CIA, NSA, FBI, and Justice Department to generate declassified material for publicly discredited election fraud claims repurposes the national security apparatus as a partisan instrument. Courts rejected those claims in more than 60 proceedings following the 2020 election; this archive records the executive branch's use of intelligence power to continue advancing them through official declassification rather than legal process.
Sources
- White House task force aims to boost Trump election claims with declassified intelligence documents — NBC News primary accessed July 1, 2026
- Trump says he told new acting director of national intelligence to declassify almost everything — CNN secondary accessed July 1, 2026
See also
- FBI raids Fulton County, Georgia election office to seize 2020 ballots; DNI Gabbard joins
- FBI obtains Arizona Senate's 2020 Maricopa election audit records via grand-jury subpoena
- Trump claims without evidence that California Democrats are 'stealing' state primaries
- DOJ Civil Rights Division opens 15 new race-discrimination probes into medical school admissions
- DOJ opened 15 new race-discrimination investigations into medical school admissions