Bulwark Takes - Kash Patel's Crazy Election Theory Came From Where?!

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

Trump allies are pushing a wild new conspiracy: fake Chinese IDs, TikTok, and underground COVID bases all supposedly helped steal the 2020 election. Will Sommer unpacks the most recent edition of False Flag.

Welcome back to False Flag here at the Bullwork YouTube channel. I, of course, I'm Sonny Bunch. I'm here talking about Will Summers' latest newsletter with him. Will, thank you for getting on with me to talk a very important topic today. Election fraud. Turns out the 2020 election was stolen and the FBI has has proof of that now. It's amazing. What is going on here? Yeah, this is an interesting one. So a few weeks ago, Cash Patel came out in Just the News, which

people may not know, but it's sort of a conservative blog that's very friendly to Trumpism. And he said, you know, we found this intelligence report from 2020 that China tried to steal the election. And then Chris Ray, the then head of the FBI, he said they hadn't didn't have any evidence of election fraud to Congress. And so, you know, people were saying maybe Chris Ray should be prosecuted for perjury. And, you know, additionally, here's the big proof. And he and Cash Patel said, I declassified it and I gave it to Chuck

Grassley, the senator, and I thought, why not just put it out there? You know, why do we have to do this kind of like hide the ball? But Republicans went crazy over it. Trump started talking about it. Oh, Democrats took over the government in collusion with China, all this stuff. And so I was bugging people. I wanted this report. It was supposed to come out. When do we get to see the report?

Everyone who did have access to the report was saying it was a big deal. And then it finally came out on Tuesday. And would you believe it? It does not actually prove there was election fraud. Yeah, no, I'm shocked to learn this. So you know, there are a lot of different conspiracy theories about the 2020 election I've heard, you know, from, you know, the faked dossiers to whatever whatever else You know drop boxes full of ballots that are you know, we're left all around cities and you know But this was a new one to me. This was this was a new one to me I was I was a little bit I was kind of I was amused to read the the background here because I had yet to see

a fake ID because I had yet to see a fake ID, fake IDs from China being used in battleground states to drive. What is the story here? What is the actual conspiracy? Yeah. So here's the claim that was made. And I should say this all started in August 2020. The FBI got a tip from a new newish source, someone they had dealt with in the past in the Albany FBI office, which we all think of as the Center for Counterintelligence. And so they got this tip and they were kind of unclear about it. And here's what the tip was. So it was that the Chinese government was importing tens of thousands of fraudulent American driver' licenses so that then Chinese citizens in the United States could vote illegally in the election, the election for Joe Biden,

and also that they had gotten, they were essentially stealing Americans' identities with information and addresses they had gained from TikTok. And so that is the claim. I can think of a couple of problems with this just off the bat. One of them, does TikTok require you to give an address to use TikTok? Is that a thing that happens? It does not. And so this is kind of problem number one that comes up is that the FBI agent, even sort of the side that at least takes this somewhat credibly, they say, you know, one issue, it doesn't really happen with TikTok.

They don't ask you for your address. Nevertheless, this tip gets packaged up as a as an intelligence report that is blasted out across the government, like every intelligence agency, the White House Situation Room, every military branch gets this report. And I'm not an expert in these reports, but based on the reaction, my sense is typically you need a bit more proof than this to blast everyone with this. And so, you know, just say that China's stealing the election or trying to steal the election. So this creates a huge, you know, huge drama within the government. And people say, oh, my God, we need more information. And then, you know, do we trust this guy? Can you re-interview him? And the source is

kind of flaky, all this stuff. Eventually, the report gets withdrawn because they say, we can't really trust what you're saying here. So we have to withdraw it until we can learn more. And that is what Republicans have really seized on here in 2025 as the evidence that, you know, this was like an FBI cover up. At one point, the FBI agents said, well, Chris Ray is out here saying there's no election interference if we think otherwise, we need more proof. And so they're saying this was all a scheme to protect Chris Ray. So the origins of this conspiracy theory are kind of interesting actually.

It seems to have been an amalgamation of like kind of Facebook boomer baits crossed with you know an actual news story about you know IDs that were impounded etc. What was the impetus of all this? What was the like origin of this whole story? Yeah, so there are a lot of redactions so it's hard to know exactly for sure what's going on here. But it would seem as though what happened was, and this is in the real world, this is not made up, that earlier that August 2020, Border Patrol had seized thousands of fake IDs at Chicago's airport.

Now, these are presumably meant for college students who want to drink underage. And this was a big news story because it was so many IDs. This then a few days later becomes on right wing blogs and eventually on Facebook. Well, these IDs were meant to sway the election they sent from China to help Joe Biden. So that's where seemingly the root of this idea comes from. Then a few weeks later, the source reports it to the FBI and kind of mixes in some TikTok stuff. Even initially, the FBI was like, you know, I think this guy probably just got it from Facebook or from something he saw online. And he's kind of blending it. Maybe he has good motives here, but he's not really getting this in a fresh way. And so that's that's seemingly where it originated. And, you know, the other issue with this source is credibility.

I love, you know, when these election fraud things really hinge on a person because they often have just truly insane other beliefs. In this case, the source had also relayed information that China had created underground bases in Republican states in the United States to spread the coronavirus. Now, I don't think that's really true. And the FBI seemed to agree. And so they said, oh, holy moly, look at this driver's license thing. But I don't know about this covid stuff and I don't know what that might say about his overall credibility. Now, Will, as we know from our discussions previously, about

your newsletters, there are a series of underground bases that cost tens of trillions of dollars to build. And I don't see any reason why there couldn't be a Chinese COVID factory hidden amongst this tunnel system. Why are you dismissing this out of hand? Yes, as we've discussed before, you know, the underground base trope keeps recurring. And, you know, certainly

maybe he could link up with, the source could link up with Tucker Carlson, a big underground base proponent to take it from there. But, you know, the FBI was not convinced. And so at least internally, you know, it was treated as kind of an embarrassment. I think the Albany people were kind of trying

to shape it up so they could send it back out. Every all these FBI brass people were like, you know, saying essentially, you screwed up. You know, we don't want to hear from you until you can really prove this. And then it went away and no one thought about it for five years until Republicans and Chuck Grassley and Cash Patel dug it up. And now they're they're on the warpath. Oh, this is this is truly shocking evidence. But for me, you know on one hand, I don't think they even believe that because we're doing this deal all these trying to do trade deals with China everything else and Trump ostensibly believes China stole the election from him and then you know, we know tick-tock is a huge part of this And then, you know, we know TikTok is a huge part of this.

But Trump is breaking the law to keep TikTok operating. So it's it's always just interesting, I guess, to get into the guts of these documents and see what they really say. Yeah, I want to hit on that TikTok point for a minute here, because I like there that we could shut TikTok down today if we wanted to. down today, if we wanted to. The law has been passed. The Chinese government has not divested itself or the Chinese company that is owned in part by the CCP has not divested itself from TikTok. We could stop this source of misinformation and I guess election fraud from being a thorn in our side at this moment. And yet it continues to operate, which again, as you say, just suggests that there's not a real serious concern there after all. Yeah, I mean, that Donald Trump is the guy who is making sure that it can continue to operate. And then on the other hand, he's saying, you know, that, you know, TikTok was part of this

scheme to take over the government to steal the election for the Democrats. I mean, Republicans have really been going wild over this one. Michael Flynn is saying it's time to indict all these FBI leaders. And supposedly it's having a real effect. Ken Delaney in the NBC reported that at least one FBI official has been put on leave for the supposed crime of not taking this wacky conspiracy theory, treating it with enough gravitas at the time? This whole story is so ridiculous and frustrating, but it is kind of indicative of where the president and his priorities kind of still sit. I mean, it is shocking to me that even now, five years later, they are still going at this idea that there was massive amounts of voter fraud that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, that 10,000 Chinese nationals using voter ID.

Here's a secondary question here. Why wouldn't they just send the Chinese nationals to a state where they didn't need driver's licenses? Isn't this the argument about voter fraud everywhere? Well, that's also a good point. I mean, I was wondering about that, this idea that, I mean, perhaps China hasn't done enough research on their election fraud schemes or what have you.

It's interesting. This idea supposedly was relayed to the source who spoke to the source who spoke to the FBI from someone in China who then spoke to these government officials in China's kind of third hand route. The person in the middle who's in China is supposedly a supporter of Shanghai's government, you know, long ago. So, you know, I think there's a lot of questions about motivations, you know, exactly what was afoot here. Yeah. Well, so where does this go from here?

I mean, are we going to have hearings about the the stolen IDs? Are we going to have the are we going to have congressional discussions about this? What's what what are next steps here? Yeah, I mean, I think it's very possible that there will be hearings. I mean, Republicans are really hyped up about it. I mean, Chuck Grassley has really kind of thrown his weight behind it. I mean, they're saying that, you know, this is like a major scandal and, you know, with the Chris Ray covering it all up and perjured himself. The Heritage Foundation has already asked the Justice Department to prosecute him

for perjury. So, you know, I this is kind of one of these things that can sort of, if you're not deeply in this world, and even for me, I mean, I kind of goes on in your peripheral vision and you think, I don't know, maybe Chris Ray did do that. Or like another example being when they said Ilhan Omar married your brother. And then sometimes, you know, I think there's a value in just getting dirty and being like, all right, I know this is a lie, but how is it a lie? And then you can just feel better about it. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you're on top of this.

I am excited to see what they dig up here. And frankly, if we can use this to blow the cover off the whole COVID underground base situation, I think that's the real scandal here. You know, elections come and go, but underground COVID bases, those are forever. Well, you know, Sonny, the one person who did, I mean, I should say all the proponents of this report

were not noting the whole COVID base thing, except for one conspiracy theory blog that said, holy moly, you know, forget about the election. FBI knew about the COVID bases? So, you know, at least someone was excited about it. Holy moly you know forget forget about the election that FBI knew about the COVID bases so you know at least someone was excited about it. Holy moly indeed all right uh Will thank you for being uh thank you for filling us in on all this and and uh everyone of course should be subscribed to the Bullwork go to thebullwork.com sign up uh you gotta read false flag it comes out a couple times a

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