“The militia leader who is facing life in prison for masterminding the bombing of a Minnesota mosque now identifies as a woman,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

She says “a combination of gender dysphoria and right-wing misinformation fueled her ‘inner-conflict’ during the time she’s convicted of bombing Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington.”

“The leader of the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced to more than five months in jail on Monday for burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington and bringing two high-capacity firearm magazines into the nation’s capital days shortly before the Jan. 6 riot,” the Associated Press reports.

In a flash notice sent to all officers and members of the department, Metropolitan Police activated the entire force and postponed vacation days, in anticipation of a Sept. 18 protest organized by supporters of Jan. 6 defendants, WUSA reports.

NBC News: “The Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt outside a door of the U.S. Capitol has been formally exonerated after an internal investigation.”

“The Justice Department announced in April that no charges were being brought against the officer. The exoneration by the Capitol Police wraps up the last remaining investigation into the incident.”

Two former police officers from Virginia have rejected initial plea deal offers by the U.S. Justice Department to resolve charges stemming from their role in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Reuters reports.

One of the men was ordered to remain in jail last month after prosecutors said he violated his bail arrangement by amassing a large arsenal of weapons after the Jan. 6 riot.

The Phoenix city manager disciplined police officers, including the department’s chief, for rewarding officers for shooting protesters in the testicles with a pepper ball during protests over George Floyd’s murder, Fox Phoenix reports.

Officers created a trophy in the form of a coin emblazoned with a protester being shot in the groin with the slogan, “Making America Great Again One Nut at a Time.”

“I am so excited. This is perhaps the highlight of this long and painful and torturous night. This is a gift… because there’s some people who have said that there are members of this deliberative body that want to defund the police, to my horror.”

— Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), quoted by CNN, praising an amendment by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) which allowed every Democratic senator to symbolically vote against defunding the police.

In a statement praising Ashli Babbit, the Capitol rioter who was killed while trying to break into the House chamber on January 6, Donald Trump seemed to threaten the police officer who shot her: “We know who he is.”

“A federal judge suggested that federal prosecutors were being too lenient in their handling of cases stemming from the storming of the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were convening on Jan. 6 to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race,” Politico reports.

Adam Serwer: “The FOP has many reasons to remain quiet. Much of its rank-and-file membership is strongly supportive of Trump, whom the organization endorsed and worked to elect in 2016 and 2020. FOP leaders also know that some off-duty officers were in the mob, and might not want to suggest that they should be fired or prosecuted. And they probably also do not want to antagonize right-wing voters who will reflexively support their members as long as any police abuses are aimed at the communities those voters hate and fear.”

“All of these reasons, however, are a tremendous indictment of police unions in general and the FOP in particular. The group has placed its parochial interests ahead of the needs of the public, from whom police derive their authority, and ahead of its sworn brothers and sisters in Washington, who drew the wrath of a political constituency that police unions would prefer not to antagonize. If a commitment to ‘law and order’ does not include support for the peaceful and democratic transition of power, it is meaningless.”

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) has pardoned a couple who pointed guns at protesters passing their home last summer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Mark McCloskey and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges, and each were to pay fines without facing jail time. The governor has made repeated statements saying he would pardon the couple.

More than a year after George Floyd’s murder by a white police officer prompted debate over police reform and whether to slash law enforcement funding, a half-dozen police chiefs and high-ranking law enforcement officers have moved to run for higher office, the Associated Press reports.

New York Times: “A Republican-linked group said on Monday that it was beginning a recall campaign backed by undisclosed donors to brand Democrats and their allies as soft on crime by targeting progressive prosecutors.”

“The initial focus is three prosecutors who were elected in the affluent Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington in 2019 amid a national wave of pledges by Democrats to make law enforcement fairer and more humane.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) suggested at a political event that the FBI knew of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol in advance, the Washington Post reports.

Said Johnson: “I don’t say this publicly, but are you watching what’s happening in Michigan? So you think the FBI had fully infiltrated the militias in Michigan, but they don’t know squat about what was happening on January 6th or what was happening with these groups? I’d say there is way more to the story.”

A fourth police officer who responded to the U.S. Capitol on January 6 died of suicide last month, WUSA reports.