The FBI, Fake ID, China, & the 2020 Election

Minimal Smoke, no Fire

There is recent media reporting that FBI Director Kash Patel has turned over records to Senator Chuck Grassley about source reporting, China, fake IDs, and the 2020 presidential election.

Specifically, John Solomon wrote yesterday under the headline, “FBI asked spy agencies to destroy intel on alleged Chinese plot to aid Joe Biden in 2020 election.” His story is sourced to documents Patel turned over to Grassley. For the record, Grassley has been a harsh critic of the FBI from his perch in Congress for more than 40 years. Let’s break this down.

In August of 2020, a confidential human source (informant) who was described as new, reported to an FBI agent about an alleged plot by the Government of China to impact the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden by sending thousands of false IDs into the U.S., thus allowing illegal immigrants to vote. Further we learn it wasn’t first hand reporting, the source learned it from a sub-source. And further yet, the sub-source allegedly learned it from a PRC official. (So the PRC official told somebody, who told somebody, who reported it to the FBI.) And, at least some of the information used in these fake IDs allegedly came from the TikTok accounts of Americans. (True names, social security numbers, and addresses are not required for a TikTok account.)

I was in this business for 33 years, so already my BS meter is spiking.

The agent wrote up the source reporting in an FBI document. Agents don’t normally comment on the veracity of source reporting in these initial reports, although if they have additional information they can add a “reporting agent comment.” This is called raw reporting.

From here, two tracks of analysis happens. First, a group of analysts who work on raw reporting will review it to see if it tracks with other reporting in the the FBI or intelligence community (IC), and develop additional leads for verifying the reporting. They might issue a RFI, Request for Information. i.e., “does anybody know anything about this topic?”

Other groups of analysts look at the larger picture and put out finished intelligence products, Intelligence Information Reports or IIRs, to inform the intelligence community and policy makers. In this case, it looks like an IIR was issued, based on the raw source reporting. To be fair it was labeled as not finalized intelligence.

Next we learn that a month before this IIR went out, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a press release they had seized twenty thousand false IDs. There was speculation the IDs came from China or Hong Kong.

Shortly after the IIR went out, the FBI pulled it back advising it was necessary to re-interview the source. We don’t know why, or if that happened, or what they learned if it did happen. The FBI also told the intel agencies who received the document to destroy it, and not base any investigative steps on it. This is where a lot of wild speculation is being thrown around.

Critics claim that pulling the report back and telling the rest of the IC to destroy it, is evidence of an FBI plot to help reelect Joe Biden. Which is ridiculous.

A much more likely scenario is somebody at the FBI realized this was way too uncorroborated intelligence, from a source three times removed from the alleged information, to put in an IIR. Maybe they realized the ICE press release from a month earlier could have been the basis for speculation by the source or sub source. Maybe between the time the IIR went out and the retraction went out, derogatory information about the source or sub-source was developed.

Let’s also consider the twenty thousand false IDs seized by ICE. Yes, they could be from China and yes also they could be used to allow illegal immigrants vote. But that is just speculation. They could also be used by illegal immigrants to get social security cards, employment, state and federal benefits, register their kids in school, acquire credit cards, etc. There is nothing that ties these to events together. I’ll go out of a limb and guess voting (especially for one particular candidate) is way down on the list of things anybody acquires false ID for.

And by the way, the Government of China doesn’t need a single issue to sow discord in the United States. Flooding the U.S. with fake IDs, if they did it, could accomplish a number of goals.

Another criticism is that by pulling back the report and advising the IC to destroy it, the FBI hindered the rest of the ICs ability to investigate the claims. This is also nonsense.

First, since about 2016, the entire IC has been hyper focused on foreign election interference. Their direction in the run up to the 2020 election didn’t hinge on a single, uncorroborated report from the FBI. Second, having seen the report, if an IC agency thought this was an avenue that needed further investigation, there was nothing stopping them from pursuing it. The FBI doesn’t direct the rest of the Intelligence Community.

Two other quick points. There might be room for criticism here about the way the FBI retains documents. Does telling the IC to destroy a document violate any record retention rules or laws? I don’t know. Does it mean the document is scrubbed from the FBI’s records system? I don’t know that either, but I doubt it.

I’m as suspicious of this claim (especially if it’s tied to a plot to reelect Joe Biden) as I am of allegations the FBI is destroying documents in other cases. Like Jeffrey Epstein. FBI records have been digital for approximately 35 years. It’s almost impossible to destroy digital records without leaving evidence you purposely destroyed them. So why would anybody at FBI do it?

Lastly, could I be wrong? Sure. I’m not in the FBI anymore and don’t know exactly what happened here. But neither is Solomon, and he was never in the FBI. My intuition is that my scenario is a lot closer to what happen than any conspiracy to hide a Chinese plot related to false IDs and the 2020 election.

What I’m Working On: My last newsletter advised of the upcoming release of WASHINGTON FIELD, my third in the CJ Hawk - FBI Thriller series. You can read a preview and the first chapter here if you didn’t see it.