Trump names 'digital guru' Brad Parscale campaign manager for 2020 re-election bid

• President Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2020.
• Trump will name "digital guru" Brad Parscale as his campaign manager.
• Parscale was credited with being a secret weapon in Trump's 2016 campaign because of his effective use of Facebook to promote the real estate mogul.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday the appointment of digital guru Brad Parscale to manage his bid to win re-election to the White House in 2020.

Parscale was digital director of Donald Trump's successful campaign for the White House in 2016. He has been called the "secret weapon" of that campaign.

The Trump-Pence Campaign said Parscale and the rest of the campaign, in addition to building an infrastructure for the 2020 re-election bid, also will be involved in helping Republican candidates in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

Trump's son Eric Trump in a prepared statement said: "Brad is an amazing talent and was pivotal to our success in 2016. He has our family's complete trust and is the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign."

President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also a senior advisor to Trump, in his own statement said: "Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run. His leadership and expertise will help build a best-in-class campaign."

The Drudge Report first broke the news of Parscale's expected role in the re-election bid in an announcement Tuesday morning. Trump filed for re-election on Inauguration Day.

An October 2017 story about Parscale by the CBS program "60 Minutes" called him the 2016 campaign's "secret weapon" for his sophisticated use of digital ads on Facebook to promote Trump's candidacy.

"I think we used it better than anyone ever had in history," Parscale said of the campaign's use of social media.

He told Wired magazine after the election: "Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing. Twitter for Mr. Trump. And Facebook for fundraising."

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Brad Parscale

The "60 Minutes" story said that Parscale's San Antonio-based company, which first worked for Trump by creating a website six years ago for his real estate company for just $1,500, ended up billing the Trump campaign $94 million for its work on the 2016 election.

In an interview with "60 Minutes," Parscale said he was bothered by the fact that Facebook has admitted that Russians spent at least $100,000 on Facebook ads to influence the election.

Trump's campaign is facing a probe from special counsel Robert Mueller on the question of whether it colluded with Russians during the campaign.

Mueller's office on Feb. 16 obtained an indictment against 13 Russians and three Russian entities for alleged interference in the election. The indictment, which accuses the defendants of conducting "information warfare" against the United States by using social media, says that the conspiracy ended up heavily promoting Trump's candidacy.

"I would not want a foreign entity to meddle in our election," Parscale said in his interview. "I'm an American."

But he called the question of whether the Trump campaign and specifically Parscale, colluded with the Russians "a joke."

Parscale last fall reportedly submitted to an interview with the House Intelligence Committee, which is also investigating Russian meddling in the election.

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Trump on Tuesday morning used his Twitter account to again deny there was any collusion with Russia on his campaign.

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