White House officials told Reuters that Trump sealed the deal in a phone call on Thursday to Morocco's King Mohammed VI. Trump then hailed the agreement on Twitter as a "massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East."

Unlike some of the Arab states, the North African nation, considered to be part of the Greater Middle East, was not technically at war with Israel. However, it has not openly acknowledged the existence of the Jewish state until now. Despite its public position of non-acknowledgement, Morocco secretly communicated with Israeli intelligence at several decisive moments during Israel's conflicts with its Arab neighbors.

Prior to the deal, some Moroccan commentators wrote off rumors of an agreement as far-fetched, in light of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what one Moroccan journalist called his country's "dedication to the Palestinian cause." Morocco also saw mass protests against Trump's Middle East peace plan in February 2020, which they view as tilted against Palestine.

Trump, however, has a transactional view of diplomacy. Alongside the agreement, his administration promised to recognize Morocco's sovereignty over "the entire Western Sahara territory." Situated to the southwest of Morocco, Western Sahara has been fought over by the Moroccan government and Algerian-backed rebel groups since Spain relinquished control of the territory in 1975.

According to the White House, Trump "reaffirmed his support for Morocco's serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal" for Western Sahara, which would see the region granted autonomy along the lines of Catalonia and the Basque Country, in Spain.

On Twitter, however, Trump painted the recognition as payback for Morocco's decision in 1777 to recognize the fledgling USA - the first country in the world to do so. "It is thus fitting we recognize their sovereignty over the Western Sahara," he tweeted.

Following the announcement, Kushner told reporters that it is an "inevitability" that Saudi Arabia will follow suit and normalize its ties with Israel. Though run by a hardline Sunni Islamist government, Saudi Arabia has moved closer to Israel in recent years, with both nations sharing an enmity with Shia Iran.

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The Supreme Court of Nevada rejected an appeal late Tuesday from President Donald Trump's campaign to overturn the election results in the state, affirming Joe Biden's win in one of the battleground states that gave him overall victory.

It was the latest court failure for Trump and his allies, who have lost dozens of cases in state and federal courts in an unsuccessful attempt to nullify the result of the Nov. 3 election. Trump says the result was fraudulent.

Last week, a district court in Nevada ruled the Trump campaign had not proven a claim there had been a malfunction in voting devices and the contest between Trump and Biden had been manipulated. "We also are not convinced that the district court erred in applying a burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence, as supported by the cases cited in the district court's order," Nevada's Supreme Court said in its judgment.

Nevada's Republican Party said it was "extremely disappointed" by the decision.

"We were not afforded an opportunity to write our brief or argue the case in front of the Court," Nevada's GOP said in a statement. "Full denial of legitimate due process and appellate rights is truly unprecedented, shocking, and extraordinary."

Biden won Nevada by a 33,596-vote margin, giving him the state's six votes in the Electoral College which choses the president. The electors are scheduled to meet Dec. 14 to formalize the outcome, with Biden having won 306 votes to 232 for Trump.

Tuesday was marked as the so-called safe harbor deadline for states to resolve disputes arising from the election. Under U.S. law, Congress will consider a state's election result to be "conclusive" if it is finalized by the safe harbor date.

Both lawsuits cite Facebook's 2012 purchase of Instagram for $1 billion and a $19 billion deal for WhatsApp in 2014 as examples of its efforts to eliminate competitors.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg's view, expressed in a 2008 email, that "it is better to buy than compete," the FTC said in its suit. "To further entrench its position, Facebook has also imposed anticompetitive conditions that restricted access to its valuable platform — conditions that Facebook personnel recognized as 'anti user[,]' 'hypocritical' in light of Facebook's purported mission of enabling sharing, and a signal that 'we're scared that we can't compete on our own merits.'"

For Facebook, the coordinated federal and state lawsuits represent the most aggressive legal action against the company to date by government authorities, culminating a bipartisan campaign to rein in big technology companies. It's the second time in two months that the government has moved against a tech giant.

"It's time that the courts put an end to Big Tech's specious claim that its products are 'free,' so 'consumer welfare' is not infringed upon and the antitrust laws don't apply," Ed Mierzwinski, U.S.

PIRG's* senior director for federal consumer programs, said in a statement. "Actually, consumers pay with our data, through a Big Tech business model of constant corporate surveillance and manipulation."

*Public Interest Research Group

Swalwell Refuses To Disclose Whether He Had A Sexual Relationship With A Suspected Chinese Spy
December 9, 2020 By Jordan Davidson

Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell refused to answer The Federalist's questions about the extent of his relationship with a Chinese spy who monitored and gathered intelligence on U.S. Democratic politicians on behalf of communist China.

A recent report from Axios revealed that Chinese spy Christine Fang cultivated deep political connections in the Bay Area and across the U.S. for years, including with Russia hoaxer Swalwell, to gather political intelligence and personal information for China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), one of the country's primary spying agencies.

Between 2011 and 2015, Fang socialized, networked, campaigned, volunteered, fundraised, and developed romantic or sexual relationships with politicians to gain information and send it back to her handlers, who were believed to be stationed in mainland China. She also reportedly used her close ties to government officials and political operatives to place "subagents" as employees or interns in some political and congressional offices.

In addition to raising millions for Swalwell, a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Central Intelligence Agency Subcommittee member, and placing at least one intern in Swalwell's Washington, D.C. office, officials believe Fang may have been sexually and romantically involved with Swalwell.

Two sources directly familiar with the counterintelligence investigation of Fang told The Federalist that she and Swalwell had a sexual relationship. Federal officials were so concerned about the romantic relationship between a U.S. congressman and a suspected Chinese spy that they even investigated whether Swalwell may have tipped Fang off about the counterintelligence investigation after he was given a defensive briefing on the matter shortly before Fang disappeared from the U.S. in 2015. A senior U.S. intelligence official told The Federalist that investigators only uncovered limited circumstantial evidence that Swalwell may have tipped Fang off after he was warned of her connections to Chinese intelligence.

When asked by The Federalist about these allegations, as well as if the representative had any plans to resign from his positions on House intelligence committees or if he ever briefed the committees on his conflict of interest, Swalwell's office refused to address them and instead pointed back to the generalized statement they gave Axios.

"Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person — whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn't seen in nearly six years — to the FBI. To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story," Swalwell's office told Axios.

Eric Swalwell refuses to admit wrongdoing over 'top secret' friendship with Chinese spy Fang Fang and demands probe into who leaked story - as he refuses to say if he slept with her (and she's STILL Facebook friends with his dad and brother)
Katelyn Caralle and Harriet Alexander and Geoff Earle
20:21 GMT, 9 December 2020

Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell demanded Wednesday that there be an investigation into who leaked his relationship with a Chinese spy who he is accused of having sex with while she worked as a Communist honeytrap.

The former presidential candidate claimed his relationship with Christine Fang - or Fang Fang - was leaked while he was involved with impeaching Donald Trump and that classified information was being 'weaponized' against him.

Swalwell, who represents a Bay area district and sits on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee, has refused to confirm or deny sleeping with Fang before he was tipped off in 2015 that she was a Chinese agent.

She fled the country as the FBI investigated her and her infiltration efforts which also saw her become friendly with other California politicians and have sex with two mayors from the midwest, with the encounters caught by FBI eavesdroppers.

Swalwell's friendship with Fang was seized on by the president's son Don Jr. who accused the Democrat of both sleeping with her and being a hypocrite for accusing him and his father of colluding with Russia.

But the Democrat said he was the victim - and suggested his high-profile pursuit of Trump was the reason he was targeted with the leak.

'I hope it is investigated into who leaked this information,' Swalwell told CNN on Wednesday morning. Axios, which first revealed the story, said it had been investigating it since 2019.

'At the same time this story was being leaked out is the time that I was working on impeachment on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees,' the California Democratic representative said.

'And if this is a country where people who criticize the president are going to have law enforcement information weaponized against them, that's not a country that any of us want to live in.'

He said, as if this wasn't standard operating procedure in politics. The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.

Axios reported Monday of a year long investigation leading to the conclusion that Democratic fundraiser Fang, was actually a Chinese spy.

Swalwell said that he cut ties with Fang as soon as he was alerted to her being a Chinese spy in 2015.

But the Democratic representative's father, Eric, and brother, Joshua, are still friends with Fang on Facebook.

Notably, Fang was one of the 44 people who liked a 2016 post from Joshua featuring a video of him and the congressman together even after Swalwell received a defense briefing regarding counterintelligence concerns around Fang's behavior and activities in 2015.

The lawmaker's father also liked a headshot photo Fang posted to Facebook on March 12 and another from March 2019.

Fang also still has friendship status on the social media platform with a slew of other California officials, including Representative Ro Khanna, the Democratic House member for the state's 17th congressional district.

Swalwell said he first became aware that Axios was looking into Fang's activities in July 2019, around the time he was ending his brief bid for the Democratic presidential nomination - during which he was a strong critic of the president.

While Fang interacted with other current members of the House - including Hawaii Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, another who made a presidential bid, and Khanna - Swalwell believes the information was leaked to specifically target him.

Tulsi probably wasn't sleeping with her.

'I've been a critic of the president. I've spoken out against him. I was on both committees that worked to impeach him,' the California congressman told Politico on Tuesday. 'The timing feels like that should be looked at.'

'What it appears though that this person — as the story reports — was unsuccessful in whatever they were trying to do,' Swalwell said of Fang.

'But if intelligence officials are trying to weaponize someone's cooperation, they are essentially seeking to do what this person was not able to do, which is to try and discredit someone,' he said.

Swalwell said he is not compromised by his relationship with Fang, and says the controversy would not cost him his seat on the Intelligence Committee.

'As the story referenced, this goes back to the beginning of the last decade, and it's something that congressional leadership knew about it,' Swalwell told Politico.

The congressman has refused to say whether he had a sexual relationship with the Chinese honeytrap spy, despite reports others had such a relationship with Fang, and he blames President Donald Trump for the revelations being leaked now.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. claimed they had a sexual relationship and described Swalwell as a 'threat to national security'.

The Chinese national - allegedly an operative for China's Ministry of State Security - targeted a group of Bay Area Democrats, including Swalwell.

Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night said his team had asked Swalwell's office whether the reports of a sexual relationship with Christine Fang were true, but his office declined to comment, citing national security.

Carlson's claim echoed that of Don Jr. on Monday, who repeated his accusations on Tuesday night.

The president's eldest son and campaign adviser also told Carlson's show that Swalwell was a threat to national security.

Swalwell is the most high-profile figure to be swept up in the bombshell story of Fang, who between 2011 and 2015 targeted rising political stars in the Bay Area and across the country who seemed destined for nationally important roles.

Swalwell is currently a member of the House Intelligence Committee, and played a high-profile role in the impeachment of Donald Trump.

'U.S. intelligence officials believe that Fang had a sexual relationship with Eric Swalwell,' said Carlson on Tuesday night.

'We asked Swalwell's office about that directly today.

'His staff replied by saying that they could not comment whether Swalwell had a sexual relationship with Fang, because that information might be, quote, classified.'

He described Fang as being Swalwell's 'companion' who helped fundraise for him, and secure the support of the Asian American community in his constituency.

Swalwell was single at the time of Fang's mission in the United States, and did not marry his wife Brittany until 2016.

Fang met Swalwell in 2012, when her cover was a student in the Bay Area and became involved in activism and politics, moving on to fundraise.

Swalwell's office gave a similarly opaque answer when asked on Monday by Axios - which spent a year investigating Fang - about his relationship with her.

Axios' story does not report any romantic or personal relationship between Swalwell and the woman - although it does say U.S. investigators discovered her having sexual relationships with two unidentified mayors from the Midwest while U.S. authorities were monitoring her.

'Rep. Swalwell, long ago, provided information about this person - whom he met more than eight years ago, and whom he hasn't seen in nearly six years - to the FBI.

'To protect information that might be classified, he will not participate in your story.'

Intelligence agencies were so concerned about Fang's involvement in Swalwell's office that they organized a briefing for Swalwell, and he severed ties with her immediately.

She vanished not long after, presumably back to China.

Trump Jr told Carlson's show Tuesday: 'I appreciate you calling out Eric Swalwell as somebody who was probably the number two recipient of these tinfoil hat brigade attacks about Russia for years.'

He went on to point out that Swalwell called him a traitor and added: 'I find it very ironic that he was perhaps sleeping with a Chinese spy, certainly one that had infiltrated his inner circle.

'And what I find even scarier is that you are one of the few people as usual calling balls and strikes and calling this sort of stuff out while the rest of the media remains silent.

'We shouldn't be surprised that the media being silent on this issue which is truly a national security threat while this man sits on the House Intelligence Committee.'

Trump Jr. had tweeted about the story repeatedly Tuesday and said, without providing evidence, that Swalwell was 'sleeping' with the alleged spy.

'So Rep Swalwell who spent years saying I was an agent of Russia was literally sleeping with a Chinese spy at the time. You can't make this stuff up. How can this compromised individual/moron continue to sit on an intelligence committee?' he asked.

He was referencing Swalwell's repeated probing into the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The story mentions nothing about Swalwell's sex life, although it features images of him with Fang, also identified as Christine Fang, at events.

Axios does provide stunning disclosures that an 'older' Midwest mayor from an 'obscure city' referred to Fang as his 'girlfriend' at a 2014 conference, information attributed to Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong.

It also cited a current U.S. official saying Fang had a sexual encounter with an Ohio mayor in a car while it was under FBI surveillance.

There was more at play than romantic chemistry with the unidentified mayor.

Asked why Fang was interested in the mayor, he said she wanted to improve her English, the official told the outlet.

Really?

Another Trump Jr. tweet featured Swalwell warning of the dangers of potential election interference, where he blasted the administration for 'false equivalence' between threats by China, Iran, and Russia - which interfered in 2016.

'It's all starting to make sense!!!' quipped Trump Jr.

He also retweeted former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, a Trump loyalist who joined one press conference to press an election lawsuit this year, that singled out Swalwell.

'It's the democrat playbook to accuse others of doing all the things you're actually doing. This should be no surprise anymore,' he said in another tweet.

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