Facebook has handed over to congressional committees more than 3,000 ads purchased during the 2016 election campaign by a firm with ties to Russian intelligence, a lawmaker said Monday.

The ads have emerged as key evidence that the Kremlin sought to secretly influence the presidential election since Facebook disclosed they had appeared on its site in 2015 and 2016.

The social media ads "help demonstrate how Russia employed sophisticated measures to push disinformation and propaganda to millions of Americans online during the election, in order to sow discord and chaos, and divide us from one another," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said in a statement.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s taxpayer-funded flights on private planes have attracted the attention of federal investigators, who are now investigating whether they were a legitimate government expense.

The department’s Office of Inspector General launched an investigation following news reports late last week that revealed a $12,375 flight Zinke chartered from Las Vegas to an airport near his home in Montana, where he spent the night.

The inspector general's investigation began Friday, the same day Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to resign amid a public outcry over his use of private planes at taxpayer expense.

The former chief executive of Equifax plans to apologize for the credit reporting company’s massive data breach when he testifies Tuesday before a congressional committee, as well as detail the missteps in response to the hack that exposed the Social Security numbers and birthdates of as many as 143 million people.

“Equifax was entrusted with Americans’ private data and we let them down,” Richard Smith said in written testimony for the hearing that the House Energy and Commerce Committee released Monday. “To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry that this occurred.”

Smith stepped down last week in the wake of the breach, which has sparked numerous federal and state investigations as well as outrage from lawmakers. His appearance Tuesday before the House panel will be the first of three before congressional committees this week.

Senior aides and political allies of President Trump fanned out Sunday on news talk shows to defend Republicans' tax-overhaul plan against critics and analyses, forcefully denying that the richest Americans would be its principal beneficiaries.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said the primary objective of the proposed tax framework that Trump and Republican congressional leaders outlined last week is to “lower taxes for middle-class taxpayers.”

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Ryan was asked whether tax cuts would apply to everyone in the middle class.

President Trump said on Sunday he told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson not to waste his time trying to negotiate with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un — an extraordinary public undercutting of the top American diplomat.

The president's stunning contradiction of Tillerson, amid high tensions with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistics programs, came in the form of tweets sent from his New Jersey golf resort just a day after Tillerson, in China, said the United States has direct contacts in North Korea and is "probing" for negotiations.

Trump's derisive nickname for the North Korean leader — "Little Rocket Man" —  has previously drawn an angry response from the government in Pyongyang. And the president's implied threat — "We'll do what has to be done!" — is the latest in a series of saber-rattling remarks that have raised anxieties among not only U.S. allies in Asia, but the American public as well.

President Trump on Sunday morning assailed “politically motivated ingrates” for criticizing the speed and scope of the federal recovery effort in the wake of Hurricane Maria, while praising first responders, the military, Puerto Rico's governor and federal workers.

His remarks were in a series of posts on Twitter, just as on Saturday morning when Trump first unleashed attacks on his critics in Puerto Rico from his New Jersey golf resort. While less acidic than those a day earlier that drew a strong backlash, the tweets signaled that Trump is comfortable keeping the furor alive -- two days before he is to visit the island on Tuesday.

Maria, a Category 4 storm, devastated Puerto Rico, whose 3.4 million residents are U.S. citizens. It struck on Sept. 20, hard on the heels of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which raked Texas and Florida respectively. Puerto Rico, too, was picking up after Irma's damage even as Maria slammed it.