DHS Secretary Mullin sheds light on foreign interference in U.S. elections
Following an eye-opening address from President Trump on Thursday regarding election security, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin delivered an integral press briefing discussing this information.
by Summer Lane | July 17, 2026
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin on Friday morning held a press briefing discussing President Trump’s comments on Thursday evening about election integrity in the U.S., backing up the president’s heavy allegations about foreign influence on American systems.
“President Trump is correct when he said that election security is national security,” Mullin said during his briefing.
He said that in digging into the elections, the investigation wasn’t about “rehashing” the 2020 election, but rather “this is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again—and there’s some really easy steps that can be taken to secure our elections, and it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”
During Thursday night’s primetime address, President Trump announced the declassification of government documents that seem to show that U.S. intelligence agencies not only knew that China was meddling in the 2020 election, but that they actively worked to downplay this alleged reality.
“[The declassified documents] show that over a period of years starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history – resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files,” the president said.
During his briefing on Friday, Secretary Mullin said that DHS had identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in just four states. He revealed that DHS had “worked with proactive states” to identify 28,000 non-citizens on their voter rolls, as well as an additional 400,000 deceased individuals who are still registered to vote.
Mullin also revealed that Iran “hacked our state voter files and attempted to compromise… our systems where military members use to vote.”
He said that DHS was working with Department of War Pete Hegseth to safeguard those systems.
He said, “What’s frustrating, again, in this, is that the Biden administration knew this, and our intel community knew this, and not only did they withhold it from President Trump in his first term, but they withheld it, it looks like [from] President Biden, in his term. They withheld this information from the public, they withheld it from Congress. That should never happen again, and because of President Trump’s leadership, we’re not allowing that to happen.”
Secretary Mullin emphasized the importance of states being willing to work together with the DHS to secure election systems.
“Talking about our machines, we know for sure that our foreign adversaries, not our allies…have parts that are vital pieces in our voting machines,” he stated. “We know that they can access what they consider the ‘key’ to the back to these machines. We know that they can change voter registration and your vote. We know it’s possible; there’s not a question, it’s not even [up] for debate.”
Mullin said that the administration was working on making state election security enhancement mandatory.
“Meaning that if these states want a grant, and they want to be reimbursed to run federal elections, they’re going to have to implement security issues….we’re saying that the machines have to be secure, and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed,” he explained.
