Bloomberg: “FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried formally applied for a presidential pardon, more than two years after he was convicted over the multi-billion dollar collapse of his once-thriving cryptocurrency empire.”

“John Bolton, a former national security adviser turned outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, is expected to plead guilty in a case involving his alleged mishandling of classified materials,” the Washington Post reports.

Former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who went to prison last year on federal fraud charges after being ousted from Congress, is now under scrutiny for his trading on prediction markets, CNN reports.

The prediction site Kalshi identified suspicious activity in a market about whether the former Republican lawmaker would attend the State of the Union address this year

CNN: “The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a death row inmate in Florida who was blocked from challenging his sentence even though a lower court acknowledged a key witness lied on stand, marking the third time the conservative high court has backed an inmate sentenced to death in recent weeks.”

New York Times: “On Monday, Ms. Peters, 70, will walk out of a Colorado prison a free woman, her nine-year sentence cut short by a commutation from Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat. His grant of clemency followed months of debate and political attacks from Mr. Trump, who demanded the governor free Ms. Peters.”

“She is set to be paroled to Grand Junction, where she once oversaw elections and still owns a home. Her hometown is solidly Republican and voted for Mr. Trump in the past three presidential elections, but residents there are now deeply divided over whether Ms. Peters is a martyr or villain — and whether they even want her back.”

“The former mayor of Arcadia pleaded guilty Friday to acting as an illegal agent of China,” the Los Angeles Times reports. 

“Eileen Wang, 56, was charged last month and agreed to plead guilty to accusations that she was directed by the Chinese government to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to court filings.”

New York Times: “With deadly precision, the Trump administration has launched dozens of attacks on small boats in the waters off South America, killing nearly 200 people in a campaign U.S. officials say is meant to curb the flow of illicit drugs to the United States.”

“But almost nine months into the operation, epidemiologists, addiction scientists and public health experts say cocaine, by far the top drug smuggled out of South America, is as easy to get in much of the United States as it was before the strikes began.”

Washington Post: “The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a Mississippi man who was sent to death row for his role in the murder of shopkeeper, upholding a lower court’s decision to vacate his conviction because of potential racial bias in jury selection.”

New York Times: “A senior C.I.A. official was arrested last week after investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth over $40 million stashed in his Virginia residence, a small fortune that he apparently brought home from work, according to court papers.”

“The official, David Rush, is being held in jail while he awaits a detention hearing in the coming days on charges of stealing public money by filling out fraudulent time sheets. The charging documents filed in Alexandria, Va., still leave a lot unanswered about his recent conduct.”

“Grand juries are the heart of the criminal justice system, the inner sanctum where prosecutors, working unchecked and in secret, have enormous power to indict their fellow citizens,” the New York Times reports.

“But under President Trump, the Justice Department has had serious difficulties presenting cases to grand juries, running into problems that would have seemed unthinkable a year ago.”

“In the past several months, prosecutors have repeatedly failed to persuade grand juries that the cases they have brought warrant criminal charges. And if it were not unusual enough, they have also been admonished at least three times since last November by federal judges who have accused them of misconduct.”

New York Times: “The Justice Department has charged a former prosecutor with stealing records related to the special counsel investigation of Donald J. Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.”

“In the indictment, prosecutors said Carmen Lineberger emailed an internal memorandum and a report — an apparent reference to the report by special couinsel Jack Smith — to a personal address, concealing the names of the files by labeling them as ‘chocolate cake recipe’ and ‘bundt cake recipe.’ The emails were sent in September and December of last year.”

Ryan Nichols, who plead guilty in connection with the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and was later pardoned by President Trump, was charged with threateningly displaying a handgun to a person with whom he was arguing in a church parking lot, The Guardian reports.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) “will reduce Tina Peters’ sentence by half, he confirmed Friday, appearing to bend to demands from President Donald Trump — while ignoring the pleas of many other Colorado elected officials and the prosecutor who won the former county clerk’s conviction in an election data-breach scheme,” the Denver Post reports.

“The commutation will reduce Peters’ original sentence of nearly nine years, which was thrown out last month, to about 4.5 years, Polis said in an interview Friday. His decision will make her parole-eligible for release from prison beginning June 1.”

New York Times: “Mr. Polis said he believed that Ms. Peters, a nonviolent first-time offender, had received too harsh a sentence because of her embrace of conspiracy theories about Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss.”

“The FBI has begun interviewing current and former CIA employees as part of the Department ​of Justice’s investigation into ex-CIA director John Brennan over his role in an intelligence finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help Donald Trump,” Reuters reports.

Fired former acting FBI chief Brian Driscoll told CNN that Kash Patel tied his job security as a career agent to helping purge FBI agents linked to criminal probes of Donald Trump.

Patel told Driscoll “the FBI tried to put the president in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it.”

ABC News: Kash Patel set to testify on Capitol Hill amid controversies.

Playbook: “His testimony comes as Patel’s favorability tanks, with one recent poll by the Democratic-leaning group Impact Research showing his net favorability at -11 overall, including -25 among independents in swing districts.”