Trump allies are reportedly plotting to declare a national emergency before the 2026 elections, built on a lie the U.S. intelligence already debunked

Trump allies are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election. The plan uses this claim as a basis to declare a national emergency, which would give the president extraordinary power over voting. It would mandate voter ID, ban mail-in balloting, and calls on Trump to issue an executive order announcing both measures.

But the core claim is false. U.S. intelligence agencies studied foreign influence in the 2020 election, and in March 2021, the government released a report concluding that China “considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the US Presidential election.” Trump and his allies had long suggested that China interfered on behalf of Joe Biden, but the intelligence community found no evidence of that.

The same report found that Russia was actually the biggest foreign actor in the 2020 election, and that it tried to help Trump, reports The New Republic. Despite this, Trump administration officials, including then-Attorney General Bill Barr, pushed the China narrative hard. That makes it easy for Trump to now invoke China again, claiming that the threat of even greater Chinese interference in 2026 demands emergency action on his part.

Trump’s claimed emergency powers over elections would face serious legal challenges

Anti-Trump legal expert Norm Eisen has pointed out that Trump has no power to impose these measures, saying, “Just as the Supreme Court struck his supposed emergency powers over tariffs, he has even less here.” However, Trump could attempt to declare a state of emergency using the Insurrection Act or some other old statute. If he does, he could try to outlaw early voting, ban mail-in balloting, and require voters to present ID at the polls.

The U.S. intelligence report also shed light on who was involved in foreign interference efforts during the 2020 election. It found that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed Russia’s interference campaign. Two Ukrainian-linked officials, Konstantin Kilimnik and Andriy Derkach, were named as part of those Russian interference efforts.

The report stated that Putin “had purview over the activities” of Derkach. U.S. intelligence has also been tracking other foreign actors closely, including how Iran’s supreme leader is operating in hiding, cut off from his own officials and communicating only through couriers.

The report references efforts to dig up damaging information on Joe Biden in Ukraine, including work involving Derkach and another official named Telizhenko, who also played a role in a Senate Republican investigation. Telizhenko was not named in the intelligence report directly, but he was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in January under the Trump administration for being “part of a Russia-linked foreign influence network associated with Andrii Derkach.”

The difference between China being a broad national security threat and China actually interfering in the election. According to CNN, Trump’s former intelligence chief, John Ratcliffe, repeatedly mixed up these two separate issues when asked about Chinese election interference activity. The report is clear that while China poses a serious national security concern, it did not carry out interference efforts aimed at changing the 2020 election result.

The draft executive order, if acted upon, would represent a significant use of executive power based on a claim that the U.S. government’s own intelligence agencies have already rejected. Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence agencies have been monitoring other growing threats closer to home, including Cuba’s alleged drone stockpiling near U.S. soil, which officials say could potentially be used to strike targets on American soil. 

Legal experts argue that the courts would likely block such an emergency declaration, just as they have pushed back on other sweeping uses of executive authority by the Trump administration. Still, the circulation of the draft order signals that allies around Trump are actively working on ways to reshape how elections are run ahead of the 2026 midterms.