From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

A new majority-American joint venture will control most of TikTok in the United States, with China-linked ByteDance retaining under 20 percent.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday approving a deal to place social video platform TikTok under predominantly American control, though questions remain as to whether the arrangement severs enough of the app’s ties to the Chinese government to satisfy the requirements of the law.

In April 2024, former President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which forbids applications controlled by a “foreign adversary” from operating within the United States, “including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.”

It was motivated primarily by TikTok Chinese parent company ByteDance’s links to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its military and surveillance operations, sparking national security concerns over the Chinese regime’s ability to use TikTok to collect personal data on American users and influence American opinion.

TikTok is also notorious for sexually explicit and leftist content, including regarding transgenderism, and for harming children.

The law, which was unanimously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, placed a January 19, 2025, deadline for ByteDance to sell off TikTok’s American operations or see the app shut down in the United States, but Trump issued multiple extensions of the deadline, despite the law only allowing for a single 90-day extension, subject to a concrete divestment proposal being on the table.

Trump’s executive order says a proposal that qualifies has finally been reached. Under the terms, it says, “TikTok’s United States application will be operated by a newly established joint venture based in the United States. It will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary, since ByteDance Ltd. and its affiliates will own less than 20 percent of the entity, with the remainder being held by certain investors (Investor Parties). This new joint venture will be run by a new board of directors and subject to rules that appropriately protect Americans’ data and our national security.”

According to an accompanying White House fact sheet, the agreement “puts the operation of the algorithm, code, and content moderation decisions under the control of the new joint venture”; “prohibits the storage of sensitive U.S. user data in a manner that would allow such data to be under the control of a foreign adversary. All U.S. user data will be stored in a trusted, secure, and purpose-built cloud environment in the United States run by Oracle”; and “includes intense monitoring of software updates, the algorithm, and data flows, and it requires all recommendation models, including algorithms, that use U.S. user data to be retrained and monitored by America’s trusted security partners.”

The order directs the federal government not to enforce the ban for another 120 days so the deal can be finalized.

It is unclear, however, whether ByteDance retaining even a small stake in TikTok satisfies the requirements of the law. Business Insider notes that another “big” question is “who exactly is getting TikTok. While it will be a consortium of investors, the exact makeup of the group wasn’t disclosed. Trump said ‘four or five world-class investors’ are involved, including Michael Dell, Rupert Murdoch, and Larry Ellison.”

In the final year of Trump’s first term, he levied sanctions against TikTok and supported banning it as well but during his 2024 campaign reversed his position days after meeting with GOP megadonor and TikTok shareholder Jeff Yass. Supporters argued at the time that finding a way to preserve TikTok was critical to drawing the youth vote.

“President Trump found a solution for the 170 million Americans who use TikTok, ensuring users will be able to safely enjoy the same global TikTok experience and view content from around the world with the confidence that their data is secure in the United States,” the White House says.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Melissa O’Rourke

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deployed a significant number of agents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of whom later complained that the bureau was driven by political bias, according to an after-action report obtained by Just The News.

The 50-page document shows the FBI sent agents to the Capitol during the riot, including inside the building, without clear instructions, Just The News reported on Thursday. The report, located by FBI Director Kash Patel’s team, was recently turned over to the House Judiciary Committee’s special subcommittee investigating the incident, according to the outlet.

In anonymous assessments submitted after the Jan. 6 attack, rank-and-file employees accused the bureau, under former Directors James Comey and Chris Wray, of being influenced by politics.

“We are supposed to call balls and strikes, regardless of political pressure, now we can’t even be trusted to be on the field,” another employee wrote.

The report disclosed for the first time that the FBI had a total of 274 agents deployed to the Capitol after violence erupted. Wray, who preceded Patel as FBI director, declined to tell Congress how many, if any, agents were on the ground at the time, according to Just The News.

Many of the complaints came from agents within the bureau’s Washington field office (WFO).

“WFO is a hopelessly broken office that’s more concerned about wearing masks and recruiting preferred racial/sexual groups than catching actual bad guys,” one employee wrote.

Agents also described being thrown into the chaos with no clear instructions, no protective gear and no way to identify themselves to other law enforcement officers.

“I wish you all would pay more attention to our safety than what type of masks we wear. If you are going to deploy us to a riot situation, then give us the proper damn safety equipment–helmet, face shield, protective clothing–and training!” one employee wrote.

Other agents blasted what they called a blatant double standard between Jan. 6 prosecutions and the less aggressive approach to the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020.

“The actions on January 6, 2021 were absolutely despicable and unacceptable in a civilized society. What is even more unacceptable was the hypocrisy displayed by the FBI and its leadership in their attempt to go after those involved in the Capitol Riots, while we as agents, watched cities burn across America during the summer of 2020,” one agent said.

“The conspiracy to commit crimes at the Capitol on January 6th, were also committed by bad actors during the summer riots of 2020 leading up to the election on November 3, 2020. Agents stood by on the ground in Washington, D.C. and observed stores being looted, burned, and ripped of anything of value,” the agent wrote.

While the FBI declined the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, Patel posted on X Friday that the bureau is “continuing to deliver on our promise of ultra transparency.”

“The only reason you have answers is because we are finding and producing materials exposing corruption at record levels. Thank you to the men and women @FBI once again delivering for the American people,” Patel wrote. “No one else is on Mission like we are.”

The after-action report also highlighted growing frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which one agent accused of pushing politically motivated cases.

“Currently, the US Attorneys office is dictating what it is that gets investigated. This is a dangerous precedent because we can barely get them to prosecute investigations that clearly meet thresholds needed for Federal prosecutions,” one agent wrote. “However, their willingness to conduct a search warrant on someone’s life for a misdemeanor seems ridiculous. It is unreasonable for the FBI to conduct investigations involving misdemeanor violations at a federal level … it is not our role.”

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued over 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to people who were involved in the Capitol riot. The action fulfilled a long-standing promise made by Trump during the 2024 campaign.