“The head of the FBI’s New York Field Office was forced out of the bureau on Monday, a month after he urged his employees to ‘dig in’ after the Trump administration removed senior FBI leaders and requested the names of all agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases,” NBC News reports.

“Dan Bongino, the incoming deputy director of the FBI, suggested on his popular podcast in January that the agency he is now about to help lead was complicit in planting pipe bombs around Washington ahead of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021,” CNN reports.

“A businessman who pumped $75 million into the Trump family-backed crypto token finds himself in a fortunate position this week as federal securities regulators are hitting pause on their civil fraud case against him,” CNN reports.

“On Wednesday, lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justin Sun, a 34-year-old Chinese crypto entrepreneur, asked a federal judge to put the agency’s case on hold, citing the interests of both sides and ‘the public’s interest.'”

“The pause is a 180 for the SEC, America’s top financial regulator, which two years ago charged Sun and his companies — Tron, BitTorrent and Rainberry — with selling unregistered securities and fraudulently manipulating the price of digital token Tronix.”

“FBI agents this week questioned Environmental Protection Agency employees regarding a Biden administration grant program for climate and clean-energy projects, escalating a criminal probe that already caused one veteran prosecutor to resign,” the Washington Post reports.

“The move came after the Justice Department in recent weeks took unusual steps to advance the investigation, having a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney submit a warrant request when career prosecutors were unwilling and seeking prosecutors in other offices who would agree to participate in the case.”

The Jeffrey Epstein files were released today, but nearly everything interesting was redacted.

A source who had reviewed the filed told the New York Post that the unveiling was likely to be a “disappointment” to sleuths eager for bombshell new evidence about the billionaire pedophile’s connection to prominent political and business leaders.

“Newly-installed FBI Director Kash Patel, whose proclaimed plans to overhaul the nation’s premier law enforcement agency have rattled many within the bureau, has proposed enhancing the FBI’s ranks with help from the United Fighting Championship, the martial-arts entertainment giant whose wealthy CEO, Dana White, helped boost President Donald Trump’s reelection,” ABC News reports.

Wall Street Journal: Inside Kash Patel’s whirlwind start at the FBI.

Washington, D.C. police said they sent an arrest warrant on Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) to the U.S. attorney’s office on Friday, NBC Washington reports.

But it has not been signed and police said the case was sent back to police for further investigation.

Garrett Graff: “The 117-year-old Federal Bureau of Investigation, long heralded as the nation’s premier national law enforcement agency — an avowedly nonpartisan, independent investigator that for decades has pursued gangsters, mafioso, Nazis, terrorists, spies, cybercriminals, and corrupt politicians without fear, favor or political malice — died over the weekend.”

“While the institution’s independence had been on life support since January 30th, when the bureau’s top career agents were purged in an unprecedented move and the Justice Department announced it wanted the identities of thousands of agents and personnel who contributed to the investigation of the attempted insurrection on January 6th, the final cause of death was the avarice and cowardliness of 51 Republican senators who voted to confirm Kash Patel as its ninth director.”

President Donald Trump has appointed right-wing commentator Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI, the BBC reports.

Wall Street Journal: “Bongino’s background is strikingly different from that of his predecessors. He is a former Secret Service agent and New York Police Department officer who has never worked for the FBI, a first for the holder of the deputy role. The post is responsible for overseeing the bureau’s day-to-day enforcement operations.”

Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys and who was recently pardoned by President Donald Trump, was arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, ABC News reports.

“The Justice Department now says that President Donald Trump’s clemency for Jan. 6 rioters covers unrelated crimes that were discovered during FBI searches stemming from the attack on the Capitol,” Politico reports.

“Federal prosecutors revealed the new legal position this week in court papers seeking to drop gun charges against two former Jan. 6 defendants. The guns in question were found at the two men’s homes during the Jan. 6 investigation, but the alleged gun crimes themselves were not connected to the riot.”

“The top federal prosecutor in D.C. escalated his scrutiny of what he characterized as potential threats directed at billionaire Elon Musk and government workers, demanding information from a Democratic congressman who criticized Musk and telling his office he planned to prosecute anyone targeting public officials,” the Washington Post reports.

“The head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., resigned Tuesday morning after declining to comply with a Trump administration demand to freeze assets of a multibillion-dollar Biden administration environmental grant initiative,” the Washington Post reports.

CNN: “The sudden departure of Justice Department veteran Denise Cheung comes a day after President Donald Trump announced his nominee to lead the prosecutor’s office, Ed Martin, who has supported unwinding all January 6 criminal cases that the office brought.”

Reuters: Senior U.S. prosecutor resigns, citing demands to open probe into Biden-era contract.

“Less than a month after receiving pardons for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, some former defendants find themselves in a familiar place: back in court, facing other criminal charges,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Other defendants are arguing they should be absolved of other alleged crimes, such as illegal gun possession and child pornography, discovered during Jan. 6 investigations.”

“At least one defendant has died in a post-pardon altercation with police.”

“Matt Schlapp, the Chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the CPAC convention, allegedly engaged in lewd conduct and allegedly sexually assaulted a man at a restaurant and bar in Virginia on Saturday night,” Yashar Ali reports.

“Schlapp has repeatedly been accused of sexual misconduct in recent years by multiple individuals, with at least one allegation reportedly ending in a confidential settlement of nearly half a million dollars, paid on Schlapp’s behalf by an insurance company to the accuser—also a man.”

“WWE legend Vince McMahon is no longer being probed for allegedly covering up a slew of sexual misconduct allegations,” the Daily Beast reports.

“The federal probe, out of Manhattan, was dropped a day before McMahon’s estranged wife, Linda, is scheduled for a confirmation hearing to become President Donald Trump’s secretary of education.”

“Steve Bannon, the confidante of President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding New Yorkers who donated to ‘We Build the Wall,’ an online fundraiser for Trump’s signature project during his first term, in exchange for a sentence without prison time,” ABC News reports.