Tag: fbi

‘Bitcoin Isn’t Going Anywhere’: Trump Officials Discuss DOJ, FBI Refocus on Crypto Crime, Not Developers

At the Bitcoin 2026 Conference, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel outlined a shift in the U.S. government’s approach to digital assets like Bitcoin.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel used a Bitcoin 2026 Conference panel to signal a shift in how the U.S. government approaches digital assets, stressing support for developers and a focus on crime rather than code.

Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, moderating the virtual discussion, opened by asking Blanche and Patel for their Bitcoin origin stories. 

Blanche said his son pushed him toward Bitcoin and called him a “clown and idiot” for not investing, while also noting that his government role bars him from owning assets. Patel framed Bitcoin and other virtual assets as economic infrastructure, saying they are assets “just like business and everything else” that “power and muscle the world.”

Blanche: Prior administrations suppressed bitcoin and crypto

Grewal then pressed the officials on past prosecutions tied to crypto. Blanche said some prior FBI and Justice Department efforts were misguided, suggesting that earlier administrations pursued cases against developers in ways that cut across core rights. 

He argued that the government should not treat software builders as stand‑ins for criminals and said the focus should be on “the third party criminal and not… the builders and platform builders.” 

According to Blanche, aggressive enforcement caused some platforms to leave the United States and reflected a lack of understanding that “stifled innovation” and “suffocated enthusiasts.”

“In the last administration, we were stifling innovation and depriving US citizen and Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts from doing what they should be able to,” Blanche said.

Blanche drew a line between criminal use of crypto and the underlying technology. He said the government will not excuse bad actors who use Bitcoin or other digital assets for crime, but he rejected the idea that ordinary participants should live in constant fear of prosecution. 

On policy questions tied to cases such as Tornado Cash, Roman Storm, and Samourai Wallet, he said that if a person is developing software and is not the third‑party user committing a crime, “you are not going to get investigated and/or get charged.” He told coders that if they are under investigation, “your lawyer should feel very comfortable working with the FBI.”

Patel echoed that stance while stressing active enforcement against fraud. He said the FBI has spent the past year targeting scam centers that use crypto, including networks tied to foreign adversaries that seek to “police Americans and fleece them from their hard earned assets.” 

His goal, he said, is for the bureau to “look at the right people” and for Americans who buy digital assets to feel their funds are safe. Patel added that the FBI is proactively investigating crime in Bitcoin and other digital assets and is pushing prevention work on the “front end” to stop schemes before they reach victims.

Keep reading

Ex-FBI agent turned podcaster ‘intentionally’ and ‘unsafely’ fired gun before he was ousted: memos

An ex-FBI agent turned provocative podcaster was kicked out of the bureau after he “intentionally” discharged his weapon in an “unsafe manner” on a training range while his instructor was in the line of fire, according to the bureau’s incident report obtained by Just the News and congressional testimony that challenges his self-portrayal as a whistleblower who faced retaliation.

The records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and from court files, show Kyle Matthew Seraphin was “permanently suspended” from the FBI on June 1,2022, just eight weeks after the alleged incident at a New Mexico gun range on April 1, 2022. The incident was deemed so reckless that he was referred to FBI internal affairs, the documents show.

Seraphin acknowledged to Just the News in an interview last year that he was “dicking around” when he fired his weapon at his supervisor’s target at the range in 2022, but he insisted the incident should not have led to his suspension and termination and that he believes he was a victim of whistleblower retaliation.

He has leveraged his story as an alleged whistleblower who exposed anti-Catholic bias and resisted the FBI’s vaccine mandate under former Director Christopher Wray to a popular anti-bureau podcast where he fashions himself as one of the bureau’s “suspendables,” a group of agents whose security clearances were suspended.

His notoriety has also landed him in a defamation lawsuit brought by current FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend, whom he accused on his podcast of being an Israeli Mossad “honeypot.” His portrayal as a whistleblower is front and center in his defense motion to dismiss that litigation.

“Between late 2021 and late 2022, Mr. Seraphin gained national notoriety as a ‘whistleblower’ for refusing to participate in the FBI’s mandatory vaccine policy and what he alleged to be potential perjury by Attorney General Merrick Garland,” his motion to dismiss declares.

You can read that motion, here: 

gov.uscourts.txwd_.1172861464.10.0.pdf

Remarkably, his own lawyers put the word whistleblower in quote marks in that court document. 

Keep reading

NIH Whistleblower Exposes ‘Full Coverup Mode’ Over Fauci’s Bat Virus Mad Scientist Vincent Munster’s Monkey Bite Horror and Illegal African Pathogen Smuggling, FBI Criminal Probe Underway

The National Institutes of Health is allegedly scrambling to bury the recent explosive scandals at its high-security Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, and a new whistleblower letter obtained by the White Coat Waste Project claims senior NIH officials in Bethesda are in “full coverup mode” to protect one of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s top virologists.

The allegations come just days after it was reported that the FBI has launched a criminal investigation into NIH scientist Vincent Munster for smuggling deadly human pathogen samples, including monkeypox virus, from Africa in his luggage without required permits or paperwork.

According to the whistleblower letter sent to taxpayer watchdog White Coat Waste, Munster, a German-born researcher long funded by Fauci’s NIAID, attempted to smuggle “dozens of vials” of viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) samples back into the United States from Africa in January.

He and two colleagues traveling with him allegedly lied to customs officials about the contents of their baggage.

The whistleblower said that NIH officials kept the entire incident quiet, refusing to inform the broader RML campus and quietly banning Munster and his colleagues from the facility.

The whistleblower states the decisions to downplay the smuggling came directly “from the main NIH campus in Bethesda” and that senior officials are now operating in “full coverup mode.”

That’s not all.

The same letter alleges that a separate lab accident at RML, first exposed by White Coat Waste in January, involved a staffer being bitten by a macaque monkey infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a deadly foreign virus.

Keep reading

Judge Rules Trump DOJ Can Retain 2020 Georgia Ballots Seized by FBI

A federal judge has ruled that the Department of Justice can keep possession of the 2020 election ballots seized earlier this year from Fulton County, Georgia, as part of an ongoing federal investigation into alleged irregularities surrounding that election.

This decision comes despite concerns raised about flaws in the process the FBI used to obtain its search warrant, as reported by Breitbart.

U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, issued a 68-page opinion explaining his decision.

He acknowledged that the FBI’s affidavit authorizing the search was not without “shortcomings,” but he stopped short of accusing the agency of acting in “callous disregard” of the county’s rights—a legal threshold that could have compelled him to return the original ballots.

“While the Affidavit was certainly far from perfect, this is not a situation where an officer left out all the facts that might undermine probable cause or where an officer intentionally lied,” Boulee wrote.

In other words, the judge found procedural errors but not enough evidence of misconduct or bad faith to nullify the FBI’s actions.

The ruling represents a notable moment in the ongoing push by federal authorities to investigate what they describe as “electoral improprieties” in the 2020 race.

Keep reading

FBI files reveal reports of ‘four-foot tall’ beings emerging from UFOs

Newly released FBI files have revealed shocking details of mysterious four-foot-tall crewmen exiting a UFO in the 1960s.

The documents, released Friday as part of the Trump administration’s UFO disclosure, detailed how investigators reviewed reports that 1965 marked ‘the year of the greatest number of UFO sightings’ observed by multiple witnesses across the world.

The FBI summarized reports of metallic craft capable of hovering silently, reaching ‘fantastic speeds’ and interfering with electromagnetic equipment.

The files also referenced that wreckage from crashed saucers had been recovered on multiple occasions, including materials described as unknown metals containing microscopic spheres.

But one of the most startling sections involved testimonies of encounters with apparent occupants of the craft.

‘A few witnesses have reported seeing crewmen who had landed from the objects,’ the document stated, describing the beings as ‘three and a half to four feet tall, wearing what appear to be space suits and helmets.’

The FBI records were among hundreds of newly released files, photographs and videos published Friday under President Donald Trump’s long-awaited UFO transparency initiative.

Hundreds of records, photos and videos were uploaded to the Department of War’s website, including NASA mission transcripts, military incident reports and infrared images captured during aerial encounters. 

Keep reading

Breaking: FBI Raids Office of Virginia Democrat Behind ‘Ten F—in’ One’ Gerrymander Map

There’s a big story breaking in Virginia this Wednesday morning as reports are surfacing on social media that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is raiding the offices of Democrat Sen. Louise Lucas, who is president pro tempore of the Virginia state senate and the chief architect of the gerrymandered map that could possibly steal four congressional seats currently held by Republicans.

Bill Melugin of Fox News posted on X that the FBI is in the process of raiding Lucas’s Portsmouth office “in connection to a major corruption probe” and noted that federal law enforcement was “serving multiple search warrants, approved by a federal judge, at her office and a next door cannabis dispensary.”

BREAKING: @FoxNews is on scene in Portsmouth, VA where the FBI is raiding the office of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L Louise Lucas, a Democrat and close ally of VA Governor Spanberger. Fed law enforcement sources tell FOX this is in connection to a major corruption probe, and the FBI is serving multiple search warrants, approved by a federal judge, at her office and a next door cannabis dispensary. More to come with correspondent @AlexHoganTV, who reports that Lucas just showed up on scene as the FBI searches her office.

In addition to her role in the state Senate, Lucas is well-known for running a cannabis shop in Portsmouth and for her foul-mouthed and low-class tweets.

Keep reading

The Comey Indictment & Free Speech

In 200-plus years of interpreting the free speech clause of the First Amendment, the courts have narrowed and expanded its scope. The Supreme Court employed a particularly narrow approach during much of the last century, through two world wars and then the Red Scare in the 1950s. 

Thankfully, in the 1960s, the Warren Court began a remarkable and thus far unimpeded march toward compelling the government to tolerate open, wide, caustic and even threatening speech.

When crafting the First Amendment with its iconic speech clause — “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” — James Madison insisted that the word “the” precede the word “freedom” so as to make clear the understanding of the drafters and ratifiers that the freedom of speech existed before the government did. This presumption — that speech is pre-political — has a theoretical and a practical application.

Madison’s theoretical application, shared by Thomas Jefferson and articulated by him in the Declaration of Independence — that our rights are endowed within us by our Creator — is that free speech is inherent in our human nature. Hence, it is a natural right that all persons have irrespective of the place or time of their births — or the government’s wishes. 

The practical application is that free speech is vital to popular government. If people fear expressing opinions that might antagonize the government, they will hesitate to speak freely; and then debate over matters of public importance will be minimized rather than be a part of robust deliberative processes out of which many ideas are sifted and challenged.

When the government threatens to punish speech, the threat harms not only the person charged, but it also chills the expressive rights of others. It gives others pause before articulating an opinion that might offend those in power. In recent years, the federal courts have criticized chilling by the government, deferring instead to the open marketplace of ideas.

Speech should rise or fall — be influential or ignored — based on its ability to be accepted in the marketplace of ideas, not on whether it pleases the government.

Until now.

Keep reading

Judge Agrees to Cancel Comey’s Court Appearance in Trump Assassination Post Case

A federal judge on Thursday agreed to cancel James Comey’s scheduled court appearance on May 11 on criminal charges related to his Trump assassination Instagram post.

Comey asked the North Carolina judge to cancel the court appearance since he already appeared in an Alexandria court.

The Justice Department backed Comey’s request.

US District Judge Louise Flanagan, a George W. Bush appointee agreed to cancel Comey’s appearance.

The Hill reported:

A federal judge in North Carolina conditionally agreed to cancel former FBI Director James Comey’s upcoming court appearance on charges of threatening President Trump at his request and with the government’s support.

Comey asked to call off the hearing because he already made an initial appearance in Alexandria, Va., last week over the allegations. He said that federal criminal procedure rules provide “for an initial appearance in the singular.”

U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, said she would cancel the initial appearance if Comey files a waiver for the hearing in the district by Friday. She said the hearing would proceed as scheduled if no waiver is filed.

In Comey’s initial request, his attorneys said he would be willing to execute any necessary waiver “to give the Court additional comfort if the Court so desires.”

The Justice Department backed the request, according to Comey’s attorneys.

Comey was under arrest at his arraignment in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, last week.

James Comey posted his threatening ‘8647’ Instagram post last May.

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Comey said.

’86 47′ is a threat to ‘eliminate/kill’ the 47th president.

Keep reading

Democrat Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger Responds to FBI Raid on Office of Ally State Senate Pro Tem L. Louise Lucas

Democrat Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger on Wednesday afternoon responded to the FBI raid on her friend and ally L Louise Lucas.

The FBI on Wednesday raided the office of Virginia’s Democrat Senate President Pro Tempore L Louise Lucas in connection to a major corruption probe, Fox News reported.

Federal agents served multiple search warrants, approved by a federal judge, at Lucas’ office and the cannabis dispensary next door, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported.

Lucas is a close ally of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger.

Fox News reported that Lucas showed up on the scene as the FBI raided her office.

Fox News and The New York Times are reporting that the corruption probe into Lucas was opened by the FBI during the Biden Administration.

Federal officers raided the cannabis dispensary with their weapons drawn.

Three people from the cannabis dispensary were taken into custody.

Keep reading

FBI Raids Virginia Senate Leader’s Office Amid Probe

The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at the Portsmouth office of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas, part of an ongoing federal corruption investigation.

The FBI confirmed it was conducting a court-authorized search warrant in Portsmouth, but did not provide details on the scope or targets of the investigation.

Federal agents were seen at Lucas’s district office on Wednesday morning. Agents also entered a nearby cannabis dispensary identified as The Cannabis Outlet, which she opened in 2021.

Several entrances to the Cannabis Outlet parking lot were blocked by unmarked vehicles with flashing blue lights, as was an entrance to the senator’s office. Agents carried boxes and bags out of the shop’s back door.

“Today’s actions by federal agents are about far more than one state senator; they are about power and who is allowed to use it on behalf of the people,” Lucas said in a Wednesday evening statement. “What we saw fits a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices of those who stand up to them.”

Keep reading