What was even more disturbing was that, according to Engelbrecht and Phillips, the FBI’s Washington D.C. office attempted to cover up this national security issue rather than investigate why Chinese nationals are programming U.S. election software.

“The problem is they know about this and chose to do nothing,” Phillips said.

“They chose to investigate it, and in the end, they chose to blame us, but this is China. These are Chinese operatives in the United States; these are Chinese citizens who are programming this.”