The Senate Judiciary Committee has launched an inquiry into explosive allegations that the Chinese Communist Party orchestrated a scheme to manufacture and ship fraudulent U.S. driver’s licenses to domestic sympathizers in an effort to sway the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden. The probe follows the sudden declassification of an FBI intelligence report by Director Kash Patel on the request of Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who is demanding a full accounting of the bureau’s handling of the document.
Late Monday evening, the FBI transmitted the once-classified report—an initial, unvetted intelligence information report (IIR)—to Grassley’s committee. The document, first located and declassified by Patel in late May, contends that in August 2020, the Chinese government produced a “large amount” of counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses. According to the report, these illicit documents were smuggled into the United States and distributed to Chinese students and immigrants sympathetic to Beijing, enabling tens of thousands of illegal mail-in ballots purportedly favoring then-candidate Biden.
Grassley’s office confirmed that the IIR alleges the scheme drew on stolen personal data from millions of TikTok users—names, addresses and identification numbers—allowing counterfeit licenses to bear authentic American identities. “These fraudulent driver’s licenses were to include true ID number and true address of U.S. citizens, making them difficult to detect,” the IIR warns, noting the plan aimed to generate “tens of thousands of fraudulent mail-in votes.”
However, the raw report is laden with caveats. A prominent “Warning” section advises recipients the material has not been “fully evaluated, integrated with other information, interpreted or analyzed” and cautions against acting on the intelligence without FBI coordination. Footnotes reveal skepticism within the bureau: one FBI notation questioned how TikTok could yield accurate address data, while another observed the source’s reporting had not been corroborated for at least a year.
Moreover, the document itself was abruptly “substantively recalled” on Sept. 25, 2020—just one day after then-FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress that the bureau had seen no evidence of coordinated voter fraud ahead of the election. The recall order instructed that all copies of the original IIR be destroyed and purged from computer holdings, pending re-interview of the primary source. Recipients were also told to ensure any future citations rely on the revised report rather than the recalled version.
In a letter to Patel Tuesday, Grassley demanded clarification on several points: the rationale for the IIR’s recall; the basis for destroying all original copies; records of the re-interview and associated communications; and a full account of investigative steps the bureau has taken to verify the explosive allegations. He further asked whether the destruction of the original report aligned with standard FBI record-preservation policies and federal requirements.
“These are serious national security concerns that need to be fully investigated by the FBI,” a Grassley spokesperson told Fox News Digital, emphasizing the need for transparency around both the allegations and the bureau’s internal decision-making.
Patel, who hailed the declassification as a win for “unprecedented transparency at the people’s Bureau,” noted that the declassified material details “alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election,” and reiterated that although the claims were “substantiated” to a degree, they were rescinded and never publicly disclosed until now.
The Senate inquiry arrives amid related enforcement actions: U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Chicago O’Hare International Airport reported seizing nearly 20,000 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses in 1,513 shipments from January through June 2020. CBP noted most packages originated from China and Hong Kong, though it remains unclear whether those interceptions are tied to the scheme described in the IIR.
As the Judiciary Committee presses the FBI for documents and explanations, the broader intelligence community faces renewed scrutiny over its findings on foreign interference. Grassley’s investigation seeks not only to determine the veracity of the alleged CCP plot, but also to understand why the bureau, under previous leadership, opted to erase the original report rather than pursue its claims.
With both oversight and political stakes high, the coming weeks are likely to shed light on one of the most startling allegations of foreign election meddling in recent history—and on the FBI’s response to warnings of potential voter-fraud schemes.
