The Billion Dollar California-China Mask Deal

“I encourage you to read and review all of the documents we’ve uncovered because the media won’t tell you about it, because the leftists controlling California don’t want to be held accountable.”

Friday’s Judicial Watch Weekly Update with Tom Fitton covered a number of pressing topics, including a billion dollar facemask deal struck between the California state government and the Chinese mask manufacturer, BYD. As Fitton explained, “we were able to extract 848 pages of documents about a California government deal… we’re trying to figure out what was behind this contract which was quite controversial… the documents are pretty interesting.” 

According to Judicial Watch’s findings, “the documents reveal that the Office of Emergency Services Assistant Chief Counsel in California admits that they deviated from the normal procurement protocol for this contract.” As Fitton summarized from an April 7th 2020 email, the President of the Chinese company, BYD, suggested that the California agency “should open champagne at the conference call when California finalized the purchase of the masks.”  In a later amendment to the agreement, “BYD had to refund 247 million of the 495 million down payment [to California] because they weren’t able to meet the deadline to receive certification for the N95 masks.

“These are remarkable documents,” Fitton continued. “The documents show how a well-connected and controversial Chinese firm was able to get a leg up on a billion-dollar mask contract with California politicians,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.