Declassified documents reveal Nikki Floris retracting a tip about Chinese election meddling, raising concerns about FBI transparency and motives.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A newly declassified document has exposed an internal FBI effort to suppress a tip about potential Chinese interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, with a senior official allegedly boasting of running a “shadow government” to control the flow of intelligence.
Nikki Floris, the lead of the FBI’s Foreign Interference Task Force, responded to a late September 2020 tip from the Albany Field Office about possible Chinese election interference by immediately retracting it. The tip, which alleged that the Chinese government had exported thousands of driver’s licenses to the U.S. to create fraudulent mail-in ballots, was never investigated. The documents were declassified by former President Donald Trump and discussed in a primetime address on election security.
1063254432 Tasking 3 AlbanyBriefingHandout 297E HQ A4095996 NotSerialized JET R RELEASE MARKED by yourNEWS Media
“Another fucking IIR went out re election security,” Floris reportedly said upon receiving the tip. She then moved to retract it, informing colleagues, “We’ll get this back in a box!” As she worked to suppress the report, FBI headquarters directed all field offices to route foreign election interference tips through Floris’s team for micromanagement.
When another FBI official preparing the Presidential Daily Brief inquired about the tip, Floris replied, “It’s been retracted,” and added, “I am basically running a shadow government inside the FBI right now.” The other official responded, “Do what you have to do :)”
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the documents reveal a motive for the retraction: FBI officials at headquarters sought to avoid contradicting the sworn testimony of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray. In July 2020, Wray had told the Senate under oath that there was “no evidence of mail-in voter fraud.” “We have not seen historically any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it is by mail or otherwise,” Wray stated during a Senate hearing.
Sen. Gary Peters, the leading Democrat on the committee, pressed Wray: “Right, but your answer is clear. You have not seen any widespread fraud by mail. It is something the FBI watches continuously to make sure that that is not happening.” Wray responded, “That is something that we would investigate seriously.” However, the declassified documents show that not all tips about mail-in election fraud were investigated seriously.
Floris’s actions extended beyond suppressing the China report. In August 2020, as Senate Republicans finalized a report on Hunter Biden’s financial connections to foreign governments, Floris and other FBI officials briefed them, alleging their work was “a target of Russian disinformation,” according to a Senate letter. The senators, Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, stated in the letter that the FBI provided no evidence for the claim and suspected it was leaked to the media to undermine their work. The allegation was eventually leaked to the Washington Post.
By October 2020, the Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed the authenticity of a key email from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The declassified documents outline a timeline of Floris’s rapid action to retract the report. After initial pushback from an FBI criminal investigative division official, who argued the tip met the standard for further investigation, a top Albany official warned that the issue “may be elevated” and that superiors were “aware of the interest.” When the Albany office moved to retract the report, Floris expressed satisfaction: “AAAAAAAH SNAPS!!!! Well done [REDACTED] THANK YOU for handling!!!”
The documents also reveal concerns among FBI officials about contradicting Wray’s testimony. One official wrote, “Based on the conflict of this information to that of the wider USIC, the fact that it contradicts Director Wray’s testimony to Congress, and the importance to the current administration, I think we should … treat [the tip] like it will be going in front of the President.” Another official noted, “A new 1023 will be needed … AND it will have to run the gamut at HQ for review/approval. Again, the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.”
An FBI official expressed unease about suppressing tips for political reasons: “My concern is that I think it gets dangerous if we cite potential political implications as reasons for not putting out our information.” The official suggested that other intelligence agencies could verify the tipster’s claims.
Despite efforts to republish the tip, Floris’s Foreign Interference Task Force suppressed it again. In late October 2020, just days before Election Day, a draft of the tip was deleted.
The Foreign Interference Task Force, convened by Wray in 2017, was ostensibly created to address foreign election interference. However, the documents raise questions about its operations and transparency.
Floris could not be reached for comment, and her LinkedIn page has been deleted. A request for comment sent through her employer, Microsoft, did not receive an immediate response.
Original article
Comments