Newsom's office refuses records request on 'murky' $1B mask deal with Chinese company

Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Democrat from California, has denied a public records request from the Los Angeles Times seeking details into a nearly $1 billion deal for protective masks from a Chinese car manufacturer.
Newsom's office has been criticized over lack of transparency into the contract for weeks and the latest refusal will likely raise even more suspicions. The paper reported that his office has insisted that disclosure into the deal with BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, could jeopardize the mask delivery.
“Publishing the agreement now — before performance under the contract is complete — would introduce substantial and unnecessary risk to the State’s ability to secure necessary supplies,” Ryan Gronsky, an attorney with the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, wrote to the Times.
Last month, Newsom told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that Sacramento had just inked a deal to buy 200 million masks monthly, which was considered at the time to be a massive haul amid the international scramble for protective gear needed in the fight against the coronavirus.
“As a nation-state, with the capacity to write a check for hundreds of millions, no billions, of dollars, we’re in a position to do something bold and big,” Newsom told reporters the next day.
Democratic state Assemblyman Richard Bloom, a budget committee member, said  last month details of the BYD deal “are very murky.”
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services told the paper that the contract does not need to be made public. A statement said that the agency determined that “all responsive records are exempt from disclosure, including exemptions for records reflecting attorney work product, attorney-client privileged information, or other information exempt from disclosure under federal or state law.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report

NY attorney general looking into sex-harassment claims at NBC News, reporter says

NBC Fake News

The New York Attorney General's office is looking into NBC News over reported claims of sexual harassment there, investigative journalist Rich McHugh revealed to Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Monday night.
Host Tucker Carson began the interview by asking McHugh if he had heard that the New York AG has been "investigating" NBC News over "sexual abuse, sexual harassment claims."
"Yes I have, Tucker," McHugh confirmed. "That is true. I'm aware of it. I've been looking into it for a story. It was the New York Attorney General's office civil division, so we're not sure if it could lead into anything criminal, but I do know that they've been looking into this and interviewing employees over a number of months."
"Well, that's kind of amazing," Carlson reacted. "So, just to be completely clear... the New York Attorney General's office is looking into NBC News. Remarkable."
McHugh, a freelance journalist whose latest work has been published in Business Insider, previously worked as a producer at NBC News and had collaborated with Ronan Farrow on the reporting of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, which the network had buried.
Farrow revealed in his 2019 book "Catch and Kill" that top executives at NBC News chose not to run the Weinstein story back in 2017, partly to shield one of its top anchors, Matt Lauer. The network later fired Lauer after accusations of sexual misconduct against him emerged.
The office of the New York attorney general did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
It was announced earlier Monday that NBC News chairman Andy Lack will leave the company by the end of the month as part of a major shake-up at Comcast’s NBCUniversal. It is unclear if Lack's exit from the network is tied to any actions by the New York attorney general. Lack previously had feuded with Farrow over the network's handling of his Weinstein reporting.
Lack "decided to step down and will transition out of the company at the end of the month," the company announced in a statement on its organizational restructure, taking effect immediately.
The restructured company will pair NBCUniversal’s television networks -- including MSNBC, USA, SYFY, Bravo, Oxygen and E! -- with its new streaming service, Peacock, into one division headed by NBCUniversal television and streaming chairman Mark Lazarus.
"This is the right structure to lead NBCUniversal into the future during this transformational time in the industry," NBCUniversal chairman Jeff Shell said in a statement. "Mark has a proven track record across every aspect of our television business from sports to local stations to entertainment. He is the ideal leader to oversee our television and streaming portfolio in this newly formed division, which allows us to have a more unified approach to our content strategy."
Telemundo chairman Cesar Conde has been named chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, which now includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC.
"Cesar is a well-respected, strategic leader who has succeeded in multiple roles at NBCUniversal since joining the company in 2013, Shell said.
Lazarus and Conde will report directly to Shell. NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, MSNBC president Phil Griffin and CNBC president Mark Hoffman will now report to Conde.
The moves were Shell's first major changes to NBCUniversal since he replaced longtime Lack ally Steve Burke as CEO earlier this year.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report. 

Flynn bombshells cast doubt on Mueller prosecutor Brandon Van Grack's compliance with court order

Explosive, newly unsealed evidence documenting the FBI's efforts to target national security adviser Michael Flynn -- including a top official's handwritten memo debating whether the FBI's "goal" was "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired" -- calls into question whether Brandon Van Grack, a Justice Department prosecutor and former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Team, complied with a court order to produce favorable evidence to Flynn.
Since February 2018, Van Grack has been obligated to comply with D.C. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan's standing order in the Flynn case to produce all evidence in the government’s possession “that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.”
The order also requires the government to submit favorable defense evidence to the court, including possible "impeachment evidence" that could undermine witnesses, even if the government believes the evidence “not to be material.”
Van Grack has long informed Sullivan that the government’s so-called "Brady" obligations, referring to prosecutors' duty to turn over exculpatory materials to defendants, have been met. In an October 2019 filing, Van Grack denied governmental misconduct and assured the court that the government “has complied, and will continue to comply, with its discovery and disclosure obligations, including those imposed pursuant to Brady and the Court’s Standing Order.”
In that same October 2019 motion, Van Grack elaborated on those claims, telling Sullivan that the government had not “affirmatively suppressed evidence” or hid Brady material. He denied that government was “aware of any information that would be favorable and material to [Flynn] at sentencing.”
Van Grack further dismissed arguments by Flynn's attorney, Sidney Powell, that “General Flynn was targeted and taken out of the Trump administration for concocted and political purposes” as “conspiracy theories.”

Special counsel Robert Mueller walks from the podium after speaking at the Department of Justice Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Washington, about the Russia investigation. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

What Van Grack didn’t inform the court about – and didn’t provide to Flynn – was the newly unsealed January 4, 2017 "Closing Communication" from the FBI Washington Field Office, which recommended the FBI close its investigation of Flynn, as its exhaustive search through government databases “did not yield any information on which to predicate further investigative efforts."
Van Grack also failed to provide evidence to Flynn’s attorneys that anti-Trump former FBI agent Peter Strzok then immediately intervened and instructed the FBI case manager handling the Flynn investigation to keep the probe open, followed by indicators that the bureau would seek to investigate Flynn for possible violations of an obscure 18th century law known as the Logan Act -- which has never been utilized in a modern prosecution.
Another Strzok text mentions that the FBI’s "7th floor" – meaning FBI leadership – may have been involved in the decision to keep the Flynn case alive.
Instead, Van Grack characterized Flynn’s alleged false statements as critical to the FBI’s “legitimate and significant investigation into whether individuals associated with the campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump were coordinating with the Russian government in its activities to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
He argued to Sullivan that Flynn’s “conduct and communications with Russia went to the heart of that inquiry.” And Van Grack said that Flynn’s alleged “false statements to the FBI on January 24, 2017, were absolutely material.”
But by that time, the FBI had already cleared Flynn of any improper ties or coordination with Russia. Shedding light on internal FBI deliberations, notes from the then-assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap -- written before the Flynn interview and after discussions with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Fox News is told -- show discussions of whether their “goal” was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”

In this July 26, 2017 photo, Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, testifies during a Judiciary Committee hearing into alleged collusion between Russian and the Trump campaign. (Reuters)

These unsealed notes further suggest that agents planned in the alternative to get Flynn “to admit to breaking the Logan Act” when he spoke to then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.
The Logan Act has never been used in a modern criminal prosecution and has a questionable constitutional status; it was enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones and was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
"Any criminal investigation grounded in Logan Act questions is an obvious political pretext to attack the Trump Administration," GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday, in a letter seeking in-person interviews and key documents. "FBI attorney Lisa Page admitted to Congress the Justice Department saw the Logan Act as an 'untested' and 'very, very old' statute."
This new evidence puts Van Grack at risk for accusations that he was misleading Sullivan as to the materiality of Flynn’s statements to FBI agents Strzok and Joe Pientka when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.
Jordan and Johnson are now specifically seeking to question Pientka, who participated in the January 2017 White House interview that led to Flynn's prosecution.
Fox News has previously determined that Pientka was also intimately involved in the probe of former Trump aide Carter Page, which the DOJ has since acknowledged was riddled with fundamental errors and premised on a discredited dossier that the bureau was told could be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Pientka was conspicuously removed from the FBI's website after Fox News contacted the FBI about his extensive role in Crossfire Hurricane Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) matters -- a change first noticed by Twitter user Techno Fog -- but sources say Pientka remains in a senior role at the agency's San Francisco field office.
The FBI, speaking to Fox News last December, asserted that reporting on Pientka's identity would potentially endanger his life and would serve no legitimate journalistic purpose. Republicans have previously sought to question Pientka, however, beginning in 2018. On Monday, the FBI declined to provide any additional comment.
For an individual to be prosecuted for a false statement offense under federal law, the lie must be “material.” The newly revealed materials strongly suggest the FBI wasn’t truly concerned about Flynn’s call with Kislyak during the presidential transition period. If the questioning of Flynn by Strzok and Pientka were based on a pretext, that revelation would arguably defeat any assertion that Flynn’s purported lies were material.
Other reports of edited information and a secret agreement may put the issues surrounding the compliance with Sullivan’s standing order into context.
For example, the Mueller Report omitted key parts of a voicemail from Trump lawyer John Dowd to Flynn’s former lawyers discussing a joint defense agreement and the exchange of information.
Additionally, the release of emails from Flynn’s former attorneys at Covington & Burling revealed the existence of “a lawyers unofficial understanding that they are unlikely to charge [Michael Flynn Jr.] in light of the [Flynn’s] Cooperation Agreement.”
Per Flynn's former lawyers, this served to "limit" what the government "have to disclose" to any defendant against whom Flynn would have to testify.
That arrangement is contrary to the stated terms of the November 30, 2017 plea offer signed by Van Grack, Flynn, and his lawyers, which represents that there were no other “agreements, promises, or understandings” between the special counsel’s office and Flynn.
Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and Fox News contributor, has noted: “[F]ederal law requires all terms of a plea agreement to be disclosed to the court; prosecutors are not at liberty to obscure plea terms because they are embarrassed or tactically harmed by having agreed to them.”
The dispute over the government’s compliance with Sullivan’s standing order may bolster Flynn’s efforts to withdraw his plea or, ultimately, have the case dismissed due to government misconduct.
Powell has stated that she expects more evidence to be produced soon, and has implied the FBI doesn't even have any proof Flynn discussed the Obama administration's sanctions with Russia's ambassador. "No lawyer for @GenFlynn has heard the recording or seen the transcript [of Flynn's intercepted calls with the ambassador]," Powell wrote on Twitter on Sunday. "I bet $1000 there is no mention of 'sanctions.'"
During the White House interview, Flynn told the agents "not really" when asked if he had sought to convince Kislyak not to escalate a brewing fight with the U.S. over sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, according to a FD-302 witness report prepared by the FBI that has been disputed by Flynn's defense team. Flynn also reportedly demurred when asked if he had asked Russia to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution that condemned Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, the FBI claimed. (The Obama administration abstained in that vote.)
According to the FBI's 302, Flynn issued other apparently equivocal responses to FBI agents' questions, and at various points suggested that such conversations might have happened or that he could not recall them if they did.
Meanwhile, Van Grack’s name has been absent from the government’s latest court filings and they have yet to respond to Flynn’s latest motion to dismiss.
Fox News' Brooke Signman and David Spunt, as well as Wilson Miller and The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

Online School Cartoons

Unimpressed by online classes, college students seek refunds

 

FILE - In this May 15, 2019, file photo Drexel University in Philadelphia. Students at more than 25 universities are filing lawsuits demanding tuition refunds from their schools after finding that the online classes they are being offered do not match up to the classroom experience. Grainger Rickenbaker, a freshman who filed a class action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the online classes he’s been taking are poor substitutes for classroom learning. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

They wanted the campus experience, but their colleges sent them home to learn online during the coronavirus pandemic. Now, students at more than 25 U.S. universities are filing lawsuits against their schools demanding partial refunds on tuition and campus fees, saying they’re not getting the caliber of education they were promised.

The suits reflect students’ growing frustration with online classes that schools scrambled to create as the coronavirus forced campuses across the nation to close last month. The suits say students should pay lower rates for the portion of the term that was offered online, arguing that the quality of instruction is far below the classroom experience.

Colleges, though, reject the idea that refunds are in order. Students are learning from the same professors who teach on campus, officials have said, and they’re still earning credits toward their degrees. Schools insist that, after being forced to close by their states, they’re still offering students a quality education.

Grainger Rickenbaker, a freshman who filed a class-action lawsuit against Drexel University in Philadelphia, said the online classes he’s been taking are poor substitutes for classroom learning. There’s little interaction with students or professors, he said, and some classes are being taught almost entirely through recorded videos, with no live lecture or discussion.

“You just feel a little bit diminished,” said Rickenbaker, 21, of Charleston, South Carolina. “It’s just not the same experience I would be getting if I was at the campus.”

Other students report similar experiences elsewhere. A complaint against the University of California, Berkeley, says some professors are simply uploading assignments, with no video instruction at all. A case against Vanderbilt University says class discussion has been stymied and the “quality and academic rigor of courses has significantly decreased.”

In a case against Purdue University, a senior engineering student said the closure has prevented him from finishing his senior project, building an airplane. “No online course can simulate the applicable, real-world experience” he hoped to gain from the project, the complaint says.

Class-action lawsuits demanding tuition refunds have been filed against at least 26 colleges, targeting prestigious private universities, including Brown, Columbia and Cornell, along with big public schools, including Michigan State, Purdue and the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Some of the suits draw attention to schools’ large financial reserves, saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds even while they rest on endowments that often surpass $1 billion.

Several colleges declined to comment on the lawsuits, but some said students have continued to get what they paid for.

Ken McConnellogue, a spokesman for the University of Colorado, said it’s disappointing that people have been so quick to file lawsuits only weeks into the pandemic. He said the suits appear to be driven by a small number of “opportunistic” law firms.

“Our faculty have been working extremely hard to deliver an academic product that’s got the same high standards, high-quality academic rigor as what they would deliver in the classroom,” he said. “It’s different, no doubt. And it’s not ideal. We all would prefer to have students on our campuses, but at the same time, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic here.”

Officials at Michigan State said students are still taking classes taught by qualified faculty, and the school is still offering tutoring services, academic advising, faculty office hours and library services.

“We don’t negate that this has been a difficult time for our university, especially for our students,” Emily Guerrant, a Michigan State spokeswoman, said in a statement. The school has taken on new costs to move instruction online, she added, but “we have maintained our commitment to providing meaningful and robust learning experiences at no additional cost to our Spartans.”

Officials at Drexel University said the school has continued to provide a “broad spectrum of academic offerings and support” while students learn remotely.

Lawyers representing students, however, say the refunds are a matter of fairness.

“You cannot keep money for services and access if you aren’t actually providing it,” said Roy Willey, a lawyer for the Anastopoulo Law Firm in South Carolina, which is representing students in more than a dozen cases. “If we’re truly going to be all in this together, the universities have to tighten their belts and refund the money back to students and families who really need it.”

Willey said his office has received hundreds of inquiries from students looking to file suits, and his firm is looking into dozens of possible cases. Other firms taking on similar cases say they’re also seeing a wave of demand from students and parents who say they deserve refunds.

Along with tuition, the cases also seek refunds for fees that students paid to access gyms, libraries, labs and other buildings that are now closed. All told, the complaints seek refunds that could add up to several thousand dollars per student at some schools.

The lawsuits ask courts to answer a thorny question that has come to the fore as universities shift classes online: whether there’s a difference in value between online instruction and the traditional classroom. Proponents of online education say it can be just as effective, and universities say they’ve done everything they can to create rigorous online classes in a matter of weeks.

But some of the complaints maintain that the college experience is about more than course credits. They say there’s value to the personal interaction students get with faculty and classmates, both in the classroom and out. Willey adds that colleges themselves often charge lower rates for online classes, which he says is a reflection of their value.

“The tuition price speaks for itself,” he said. “These students decided to go to in-person, on-campus universities. They could have chosen to go to online colleges and earn their degree that way, but they didn’t.”

Even before the first lawsuits were filed, demands for tuition refunds had been spreading. Students at dozens of schools have started petitions calling for refunds as online classes left them underwhelmed. Scores of schools have returned portions of housing and dining fees, but few if any have agreed to return any share of tuition.

At the University of Chicago, hundreds of students signed a letter saying they will refuse to pay this term’s tuition, which was due April 29, unless the school reduces tuition by 50% and keeps it at that level during the crisis.

Colleges counter that the coronavirus has put them under sharp financial strain, too. Some estimate that they could lose up to $1 billion this year as they brace for downturns in student enrollment, state funding and research grants. Some have already announced layoffs and furloughs as they work to offset losses.

But the lawsuits say it’s not fair to pass those losses on to students. Jennifer Kraus-Czeisler, a lawyer for the New York firm Milberg Phillips Grossman, which is representing several students, said colleges have a duty to return fees for services they aren’t providing.

“We’re not disparaging the schools for closing. They did what was appropriate,” she said. “But they’re profiting at the expense of students. It just seems unconscionable.”

DHS report: China hid virus’ severity to hoard supplies

FILE - In this April 29, 2020, file photo Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a news conference at the State Department in Washington. Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a 4-page, Department of Homeland Security report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Pompeo saying Sunday, May 3, that China has been responsible for the spread of disease in the past and must be held accountable for the outbreak of the current pandemic. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents show.

Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and must be held accountable.

ADVERTISEMENT

The sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the government’s response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President Donald Trump’s political opponents have accused him of lashing out at China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt to deflect criticism at home.

Not classified but marked “for official use only,” the DHS analysis states that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to cover up doing so by “denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data,” the analysis states.

The report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for much of January so it could order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.

Those conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China’s changes in imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to the report.

China informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the pathogen as a novel coronavirus on Jan. 8.

Chinese officials muffled doctors who warned about the virus early on and repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the Chinese government’s missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic hurdles, tight controls on information, and officials hesitant to report bad news. There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional plot to buy up the world’s medical supplies.

In a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.

“Intelligence has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior to my banning China from the U.S.,” Trump wrote without citing specifics. “Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.”

Trump had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to some kind of horrible “mistake.” His intelligence agencies say they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.

Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Pompeo said he had no reason to believe that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, “Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories.”

“These are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab,” Pompeo said. “And so, while the intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. His remark may be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.

Experts say the virus arose naturally in bats, and make it clear that they believe it wasn’t man-made. Many virologists say the chance that the outbreak was caused by a lab accident is very low, though scientists are still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from animals to humans.

Beijing has repeatedly pushed back on U.S. accusations that the outbreak was China’s fault, pointing to many missteps made by American officials in their own fight against the outbreak. China’s public announcement on Jan. 20 that the virus was transmissible from person to person left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic, during which the U.S. government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed testing kits.

“The U.S. government has ignored the facts, diverted public attention and engaged in buck-passing in an attempt to shirk its responsibility for incompetence in the fight against the epidemic,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang said Friday.

Dems deploying DARPA-funded AI-driven information warfare tool to target pro-Trump accounts

TODAY -- Pictured: Gen. Stanley McChrystal appears on NBC News' "Today" show -- (Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images)

An anti-Trump Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is planning to deploy an information warfare tool that received initial funding from DARPA, the Pentagon’s secretive research arm -- transforming technology originally envisioned as a way to fight ISIS propaganda into a campaign platform to benefit Joe Biden.
The Washington Post first reported that the initiative, called Defeat Disinfo, will utilize "artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media," and then attempt to "intervene" by "identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country — in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president."
Social media guru Curtis Hougland is heading up Defeat Disinfo, and he received the funding from DARPA when his program was "part of an effort to combat extremism overseas." He explained in an interview with the Post that he was unhappy that top social media accounts often supported Trump, and had effectively defended the president in recent days from claims that he had suggested Americans inject themselves with disinfectant.
The effort raised the question of whether taxpayer funds were being repurposed for political means, and whether social media platforms have rules in place that could stymie Hougland's efforts -- if he plays along.
A spokesperson for Facebook told Fox News that "our policies require creators and publishers to tag business partners in their branded content posts when there's an exchange of value between a creator or publisher and a business partner."

Politicians and PACs who are authorized under Facebook's policy entitled “Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics” are allowed to use the site's branded content tool, the spokesperson added.
As part of the authorization process for advertisers, Facebook says on its website that it "confirms their ID and allows them to disclose who is responsible for the ad, which will appear on the ad itself. The ad and 'Paid for by' disclaimer are placed in the Ad Library for seven years, along with more information such as range of spend and impressions, as well as demographics of who saw it."
A spokesperson for Twitter did not immediately provide an on-the-record comment to Fox News. In 2018, Twitter launched its Political Campaigning Policy, which promises a degree of "transparency" for paid political communications.
The policy requires "advertisers who want to run political campaigning ads for Federal elections to self-identify and certify that they are located in the US Candidates and committees will have to provide their FEC ID, and non-FEC registered organizations and individuals will have to submit a notarized form."
Additionally, "handles used for political campaigning advertising will have to comply with stricter requirements," Twitter's policy states. "The handle’s profile photo, header photo, and website must be consistent with its online presence and the Twitter bio must include a website that provides valid contact information. We will also be including a visual badge and disclaimer information on promoted content from certified accounts in the near future. This will allow users to easily identify political campaigning ads, know who paid for them, and whether it was authorized by a candidate."
Twitter provided an image of what promoted political content ideally would look like.

McChrystal, who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan before he was fired by then-President Obama in 2010 for deriding his civilian bosses in a Rolling Stone interview, told the Post that the operation was necessary, even if it might appear unseemly.
“Everyone wishes the Pandora’s box was closed and none of this existed, but it does," McChrystal said.
McChrystal has not explicitly endorsed Biden, even though the new information warfare project is intended to help his candidacy. The former general has previously gone on the record with a less-than-glowing assessment of Biden's competence.
One of the tidbits in the Rolling Stone interview by Michael Hastings recounted how McChrystal had lost confidence in Biden after he had suggested a counterterrorism strategy.
"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal said, imagining a way to dismissively mock Biden if someone were to ask about him during an upcoming question-and-answer session. 'Who's that?'"
"'Biden?" another adviser chimed in, according to Hastings. 'Did you say: Bite Me?'"

Trump on media 'hostility': 'If I was kind to them, I'd be walked off the stage'

President Trump defended his growing list of contentious exchanges with reporters Sunday night during Fox News' virtual Town Hall, telling moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, "If I was kind to them, I'd be walked off the stage."
The president argued, "I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen."
"The closest will be that gentleman up there," he continued, gesturing toward the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. "They say nobody got treated worse than Lincoln... I believe I am treated worse. You see those press conferences. They come at me with questions that are disgraceful... their manner of presentation and their words. I feel if I was kind to them, I would be walked off the stage."

"'If I was kind to them, I'd be walked off the stage."
— President Trump, speaking to Fox News

Trump was responding to a question submitted by Carolyn Perkins, a retired nurse and elementary school guidance counselor who urged him to abandon his use of "descriptive words that can be classified as bullying," and instead hold on to the "wonderful attributes that make you our great leader."
Trump had sparred frequently with journalists during the daily coronavirus task-force briefings in the weeks after the coronavirus started to spread, turning much of the question-and-answer sessions into reflections of the media's frayed relationship with the president.
"They come at you with the most horrible horrendous biased questions," Trump said. "You see it. 94 to 95 percent of the press is hostile, and yet... we have tremendous support... but the media might as well be in the Democrat party."
He continued, "I appreciate the question, and I very much appreciate the sentiment behind the question -- but I'm standing up there and instead of asking me a normal question, the level of anger and hatred..." before trailing off.
Trump voiced frustrations that despite accomplishing "more than any other president in history," he has been met with a "very hostile press," as he put it.
"I look at them and say, what is your problem? I think we have done more than any other president in the history of our country."
"We rebuilt our military. We had the biggest tax cut in history... yet we have a very hostile press," Trump went on. "Nobody has seen anything like this."
Fox News' Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum contributed to this report.