President-elect Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Department of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, met virtually with Black farm organizations and activists on Tuesday, the transition announced.

The meeting comes after his nomination was criticized by many hoping for a more diverse pick and those that hoped Rep. Marcia Fudge, who is now Biden's nominee to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would be tapped for the role.

Per the transition, the meeting centered on "ensuring fairness and equity for Black farmers as they recover from the devastating effects of the pandemic, providing necessary resources to tackle the ongoing systemic issues they face and expanding access to nutrition for communities across the country." It also touched on the need to address the discrimination Black farmers have faced at the hands of the USDA.

Among the participants in the meeting was Shirley Sherrod, the former head of USDA rural development in Georgia, who was forced out of her job when Vilsack led the department during the Obama administration over a deceptively edited video pushed by right-wing news sites.

Both Vilsack and the White House later apologized for pushing Sherrod out of her job.

-ABC News' John Verhovek

Biden officially announced Tuesday evening that he will nominate Miguel Cardona to be his secretary of education, as reported by ABC News earlier.

"In Miguel Cardona, America will have an experienced and dedicated public school teacher leading the way at the Department of Education -- ensuring that every student is equipped to thrive in the economy of the future, that every educator has the resources they need to do their jobs with dignity and success, and that every school is on track to reopen safely," Biden said in a statement.

Cardona is currently Connecticut's commissioner of education.

-ABC News' John Verhovek

President Donald Trump is now saying he won't sign the COVID-19 relief bill sent for his approval after representatives from the Trump administration worked to get a bill the president was willing to sign.

Trump tweeted Congress should amend the $900 billion stimulus package and send it back to him. In a video, he asks them to amend the $600 direct payments to $2,000 and to get rid of the "wasteful" items before he signs it.

“Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me," the president says in the video.

Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate had debated the relief bill for months along with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The secretary had even said the direct $600 payments would be coming to Americans starting next week.

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was in Georgia Tuesday hoping to observe the signature match audit underway in Cobb County, Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs confirmed to ABC News.

Fuchs said that she didn't allow Meadows to enter the room where this was happening, but allowed him to stand with her in the doorway. She said that when Meadows arrived, the people doing the audit were about to go to lunch anyway, and the supplies and ballot envelopes had been packed away for that.

Still, according to Fuchs, Meadows told her they had "a good meeting" and that whatever information she was able to provide to him, he would report back to President Trump.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Dec. 14 that Cobb County would conduct this audit, saying there was a "specific allegation" that signature matching wasn't done properly in the June primary. A statistically significant number of absentee envelopes (not every ballot) from both the June and November elections are being looked at as part of this audit. Fuchs said the secretary's office is urging the county to finish by Monday.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan and Ben Gittleson.

A Dominion Voting Systems employee has filed a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump, attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, among others, alleging they helped elevate a "false and baseless" conspiracy theory about him as part of their election rigging [claims[() against the voting machine company.

The suit marks the start of what could be an onslaught of litigation against the president and his allies, who mounted challenges to the election based on false allegations of fraud and fierce conspiracy theories. Some conservative outlets in recent days have begun airing retractions as the threat of litigation looms.

Eric Coomer, the Director of Product Strategy and Security for Dominion, says he has faced death threats and harassment as a result of the "baseless and unequivocally false" conspiracy theory about him, which claimed he had admitted to rigging Dominion machines against Trump on an "Antifa conference call."

"Without concern for the truth or the consequences of their reckless conduct, Defendants branded Dr. Coomer a traitor to the United States, a terrorist, and a criminal of the highest order," Coomer wrote in his complaint. "While this theory has been thoroughly rejected, its immediate and life-threatening effects remain very real."

The suit, filed in state court in Colorado, is separate from the heavy legal challenge Dominion as a company is expected to mount on its own against Sidney Powell.

In his complaint, Coomer says the threats have escalated to the point where he had to leave his home and "sever ties" with friends and family to stay in seclusion after the theory-- part of a broader conspiracy theory that the Dominion voting machine company rigged the election for Biden-- went viral on social media.

-ABC News' Olivia Rubin