China 'committed fraud in 2020 US election' claims Donald Trump in chilling address to the nation

And he directly accused China of "undermining" both his first administration and his 2020 campaign.

"They did not want Donald Trump to win, and for good reason," the President said.

"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 US voter files," he said.

"That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote, and engage in other nefarious activities.

"This data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare.

"The intelligence even shows that China assigned a data exploitation unit specifically to this new project."

The White House has now released a tranche of new documents, divided into four "pillars", alleging the US's election system is "broken and vulnerable".

And in a chilling revelation, Mr Trump also said hundreds of thousands of non-citizens had been registered on electoral voter rolls.

China's election interference was covered up by the "Deep State in our intelligence agencies", which hid the information from both the President and public, the President said.

Voter data in 18 states had been bought, stolen or hacked by China, the President said new documents will reveal.

"Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information hidden," he added.

"They did not disclose it to me as President, and to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress. In fact, all they kept saying is: 'This is the most secure election in the history of our country.'"

He added: "The cover-up of this colossal security breach is even more disturbing in light of additional information showing that China engaged in other election-related activities to undermine my first administration and our 2020 campaign.

"They did not want Donald Trump to win, and for good reason."

The President also claimed evidence of "China's sinister election meddling" had been intentionally buried by the media, and accused China of paying journalists to write negative stories against him.

Quoting now-unclassified documents he said: "The Chinese Government sought to identify US journalists who had reported negatively on the US President, and pay them large sums of money to write more negative articles about him. The Chinese Government wanted the U.S. president to lose the next election."

He added: "And the reason they wanted me to lose is because they knew I was wise to them, charged them billions of dollars' worth of tariffs, and built the strongest military anywhere in the world."

Mr Trump separately alleged his administration found "burn bags" - which had not been incinerated - that contained numerous document given by former President Barack Obama.

A burn bag is a security bag that holds sensitive or classified documents set to be destroyed by fire after a certain amount of time has passed.

The White House documents alleged significant evidence of voter fraud in Michigan was covered-up, with the FBI now investigating the matter - and FBI Director Kash Patel in attendance.

Michigan officials have denied the President's "baseless accusations" that their state's elections were not secure, and pushed back against the "Department of Justice’s intention to deploy federal election monitors to various polling locations during the August primary election".

The northern state is in the midst of a heated primary campaign, with Democratic Socialist Abdul El-Sayed and US Representative Haley Stevens both seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Mike Rogers.

The four key areas of election integrity concerns named by Mr Trump proved the need to pass the President's Save America Act, he declared.

He said: "Great damage has been done to our country - our elections were left vulnerable to being rigged and stolen, and the trust of the American People was lost. This cannot be allowed to continue.

"Every American, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or otherwise, should be able to agree that we deserve the most secure, honest, and fair election system anywhere in the world."

The Save America act would ban mail-in ballots and require proof of citizenship to vote.

The Senate has not yet passed the act as it lacks the necessary support to clear the 60-vote filibuster, but House Republicans have pledged to push it through by attaching it to a wider spending bill.

Mr Trump added: "Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress MUST pass the Save America Act. The only reason you wouldn't want to do it is that you want to cheat.

"This landmark bill requires that all voters must show proof of voter ID, all voters must provide proof of citizenship, and hopefully there will be NO corrupt mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military deployment, or travel."

Senior Democrats, responding to the President's speech, have repeated refusals to pass the bill.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said: "The Save Act is dead on arrival in the United States Senate."

And Senator Mark Warner, a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the claims made by the President were "totally bogus".