FBI report alleges China tried to interfere in 2020 election

Congress now has a declassified intelligence report from the FBI

alleging China tried to interfere in the 2020 election. FBI Director Kash Patel announcing the documents detail alarming allegations

of interference by the Chinese Communist Party. News of the alleged plot largely made headlines

among news outlets with a right political bias. Left outlets largely left the story

out of its news coverage, as you can see by this graph. We call this story a media miss

when a news story is being missed by one side of the media spectrum. If we zoom in and look closer

at the media's coverage, headlines from right-leaning outlets report on what the FBI is

saying, from the intelligence report pointing to China wanting Biden to win, and the plot involving

flooding the U.S. with fake mail-in ballots, according to the FBI's report

But news outlets from the left, which are covering the story, the headlines read a lot differently

Reporting the FBI director is igniting a bonkers conspiracy theory and feeding 2020 election

conspiracy theories Highlighting the report stems from an unverified tip Before we get into what you need to know about the FBI report let talk about why we could be seeing the media narratives

diverge. It boils down to party skepticism. Those on the right were largely skeptical of the 2020

election results. So a report detailing alleged interference has importance to the political

right. However, for those on the left, their skepticism lies in the FBI and its new leadership

When Patel was nominated and confirmed to head the FBI, the left's coverage at the time

largely expressed concerns over Patel pushing conspiracy theories. These two political ideologies

are felt in news coverage from news media with a left and right political bias

So let's talk about the FBI's report without political opinion, guiding our delivery of the story

Here's the facts. The allegations of a Chinese plot to interfere in the 2020 election were first

reported in August of 2020, mere months before Election Day. An FBI source alleged the Chinese

government was manufacturing and exporting fake U driver licenses and the IDs were said to be made for Chinese residents living in the U so they could then receive and cast mail ballots The FBI source said the plot was designed

to help Biden and that personal information was collected from U.S. TikTok users to create the IDs

According to the report, within a period of weeks, the intel report was recalled because the FBI

confidential source who reported the plot was, quote, relatively new and the source needed to

be re-interviewed. Patel says the allegations were never fully investigated. Just one month prior to

the FBI sources claims on July 27th, 2020, Customs and Border Protection issued this press release

announcing over the past six months, more than 1,500 mail shipments were confiscated at the

Chicago O'Hare International Airport, containing 19,888 counterfeit IDs, saying the majority of

these shipments were arriving from China and Hong Kong. Sometimes reporting what we don't know yet

is just as important as reporting what we do know We haven seen the FBI files However they are declassified and now in the hands of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley who could make the files public We don know anything about who the FBI confidential source was and we don know if the FBI ever re the source

And as for the 20,000 counterfeit IDs confiscated by the CBP in 2020, we can't draw a certain line of connection to the alleged plot

NBC News on the left wrote college-age students historically buy counterfeit IDs to purchase

alcohol, while Just the News on the right wrote it could be possible corroboration

of the alleged plot. Grassley has requested further information from the FBI regarding the file

Thanks for watching our news update. We'll continue to follow this story

and you can too, by downloading the Straight Arrow News mobile app today

Also, I host a podcast called Bias Breakdown here at Straight Arrow News

It's a different kind of storytelling, looking at how news outlets report the same story with

diverging narratives from left and right media. Check out our latest episode out now

Protest or Riots. Media wages war for control of narrative. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Kara Rucker