Agents and directors at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received an email from leadership on Thursday instructing them not to participate in Pride Month in their professional capacity, a departure from the tone of the Biden administration’s bureau.

‘I’ve received several questions about the FBI’s stance on Pride Month and what related activities FBI divisions and employees should or should not participate in,’ FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson said in an email obtained by Fox News Digital addressed to assistant directors in charge and special agents in charge on Thursday morning. 

‘So, I want to take the opportunity to make FBI leadership’s expectations clear: There should be no official FBI actions, events, or messaging regarding Pride Month.’

The email explains that employees are ‘free to do as you like’ in their ‘personal capacity’ or ‘on your own time.’

‘But on FBI time, using FBI resources and your Bureau affiliation, you and your divisions are expected to take no official actions or issue any specific messaging,’ Williamson said, adding that the ‘stance in no way lessens the FBI’s commitment to serve and protect every American in our country or welcoming colleagues from all walks of life.’

‘What it does mean is ensuring that the American people see we are focused only on our core mission.’

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. 

Shifting away from official celebrations of Pride Month represents a shift from messaging during the Biden administration, which saw several examples of the bureau promoting the month, including taking part in a Kansas City Pridefest and mentioning Pride Month in press releases.

The Biden administration faced criticism from conservatives in recent years after the White House and departments vocally supported Pride Month, which is observed for the month of June, with formal celebrations. 

Then-President Joe Biden hosted a ‘Pride Month 2023’ event on the White House lawn, decorating the area with rainbow motifs and the ‘Progress Pride flag.’

‘Today, the #FBI raised the #pride flag at our headquarters in support of our #LGBTQ colleagues,’ the FBI posted on social media in June 2021. ‘We thank them for their contributions to the FBI and the country. #PrideMonth.’

The email comes after the Trump administration has shifted away from diversity, equity and inclusion messaging and programs in federal government, instead focusing on meritocracy and the individual missions of departments.

‘Let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI,’ FBI Director Kash Patel said in his first statement after being sworn in to lead the bureau. 

The moment that Elon Musk’s most ardent critics have been waiting for has finally arrived as he exits the Trump administration and hands over control of the Department of Government Efficiency. They will assure us that the results have been an embarrassing failure, but they could not be more wrong. 

Musk has forever changed how Americans look at federal spending, and that is a wonderful thing.

First of all, DOGE estimates that it has saved taxpayers $160 billion. A sneering NPR claims that there is only data to prove $63 billion, but even if that is true, that’s an enormous amount of waste being cut. 

Was Musk shooting for a higher number? Sure. This is, after all, a guy who is literally trying to get to Mars. But the savings DOGE has already found and will continue to find until it sunsets in July of next year are nothing to sneeze at.

The impact of Musk and DOGE also goes well beyond the mere grand total dollar figure. It is the speed with which they identified wasteful spending and the absurdity of many of the programs they uncovered and cut that has proven to be a game-changer.

Who can forget the discovery that we gave a former Taliban member $132,000 to promote peace, or $20 million for Sesame Street to be broadcast in Iraq, along with boatloads of dollars for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs throughout our government and around the globe?

Over the first 60 days of the Trump administration, it seemed like every hour some new and ridiculous spending was being identified. What Americans had felt as a vague sense that the federal government is wasteful became one concrete example after another of blatant and frivolous waste.

These revelations have moved the Overton window in American discourse around spending. We will no longer accept blue-ribbon commissions with no power studying the problem for years on end, only to do nothing. We want action now.

And while DOGE still requires approval from cabinet secretaries to finalize its cuts, they have generally been willing and able to do so.

Musk and DOGE have also shown that it is OK to make mistakes when zealously safeguarding the taxpayer’s dime, because errors can be quickly fixed.

For example, when funding for the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md., was cut early in the administration, officials appealed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem, who recognized the importance of the program which trains100,000 firefighters a year. Funding was restored.

Slashing federal spending is not like a haircut. You can put back things that are wrongly cut, so there is no reason to be paralyzed by fear when trimming.

Perhaps more than anything else, what Musk has succeeded in doing with DOGE is to open up the hood of federal spending and give us all a sobering look at the engine.

This is very similar to what he did when he bought Twitter and allowed journalists to produce the Twitter Files, revealing many shady secrets that proved the platform had been harshly censoring conservative viewpoints.

This kind of radical transparency is anathema to a deep state that demands to be like a black box, where our money flows in, never comes out, and we don’t get to look inside.

Bureaucrats have clearly been treating the federal budget like a slush fund for all manner of pet projects and silly endeavors, and boy do they hate having any light exposed on their massive contracts to export condoms everywhere or study trans animals.

For decades, federal spending has been like a giant Rock of Gibraltar that nobody could get their arms or heads around. But now, instead of focusing on the gigantic forest of spending, Musk has found ways to identify the dying trees.

It is natural that Musk and his supporters feel some measure of disappointment that more could not have been cut, and that some Republicans in Congress don’t seem eager to codify cuts to what has been found. But politics is, as they say, the art of the possible.

Today, thanks to Musk, there are far more possibilities out there, far more programs that bring little value to be exposed, far more opportunity for the American people to see the senseless spending in black and white.

Finally, and it’s an important point, federal bureaucrats, the people who spend our money, suddenly have to look over their shoulder and be prepared to justify that spending, and when they glance up to see who is peeking at their work, it’s not just Musk, it’s not just DOGE, it is the American people.

Today is the deadline for President Joe Biden’s former White House physician and four aides to respond to House Oversight Committee interview requests.

Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is demanding the high-ranking staffers in former President Joe Biden’s White House appear for transcribed interviews on their suspected roles, working ‘behind the scenes’ to ‘cover up’ the former president’s mental decline during his term.

Comer sent interview requests to four key Biden White House aides — former director of the Domestic Policy Council Neera Tanden, former assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, former senior adviser to the first lady Anthony Bernal and former deputy director of Oval Office operations Ashley Williams.

FOX is told lawyers for Neera Tanden, Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams have contacted the committee, but no interviews are confirmed or scheduled. 

So far, there’s been no contact with physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor. While the Bidens have stayed silent on the latest congressional probe, Jill Biden’s former press secretary is pushing back. 

With regards to Chairman Comer…he spent two years trying to take on the Biden family and came up with nothing. He went fishing in a dry lake,’ said Michael LaRosa.

If they don’t commit by day’s end, the committee said it is ready to issue subpoenas immediately.

‘We believe these are the staffers that were responsible for using the autopen… We want to ask them, ‘Who gave you the authority to use Joe Biden’s signature?’’ Comer said on ‘Hannity.’

The Supreme Court on Thursday limited the authority of judges to block infrastructure projects due to environmental concerns.

The nine justices handed down the lone decision Thursday morning, slightly curbing judicial authority at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is loudly complaining about alleged judicial overreach. The case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, relates to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the requirement for environmental impact statements (EIS) in infrastructure projects supported by the federal government.

‘NEPA does not allow courts, ‘under the guise of judicial review’ of agency compliance with NEPA, to delay or block agency projects based on the environmental effects of other projects separate from the project at hand,’ Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion of the court.

‘Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness,’ the opinion continued.

Kavanaugh went on to state that agencies should not be expected to consider the environmental impact of any project aside from the one they are currently working on, ‘even if’ the environmental impacts ‘might extend outside the geographical territory of the project or materialize later in time.’

‘The fact that the project might foreseeably lead to the construction or increased use of a separate project does not mean the agency must consider that separate project’s environmental effects,’ the court ruled.

Thursday’s decision was an 8-0 ruling, with Justice Neil Gorsuch taking no part in the consideration of the case. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett joined with Kavanaugh’s opinion.

Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a separate concurring opinion, onto which joined Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Trump, having a history in major construction projects, has repeatedly complained about environmental impact statements and the roadblocks they can cause.

Republicans have also widely criticized what they see as judicial overreach in federal judges unilaterally blocking major aspects of Trump’s agenda.

‘Universal injunctions are an unconstitutional abuse of judicial power,’ Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital earlier this month.

‘Just this past week, a D.C. district judge issued a universal injunction blocking the president’s executive order requiring voter ID or proof-of-citizenship prior to voting in national election,’ he continued. ‘Judges are not policymakers.’

The Supreme Court is considering the wide use of universal injunctions in a separate case that will be handed down in the coming weeks.

Elon Musk’s criticism of House Republicans’ ‘big, beautiful bill’ has left some GOP lawmakers frustrated at the tech billionaire.

‘This is why Mr. Musk has no place in Congress,’ one House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. ‘He wants to codify discretionary cuts. He didn’t find enough waste, fraud, and abuse to fund [the Small Business Administration], let alone reduce our debt.’ 

‘This was a gimmick. He got used. He’s now upset. He played the game, he got what he wanted, then he ended up like everyone else who gets too close.’

House Republicans passed a broad-ranging bill last week advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda on tax, immigration, defense, and energy. Congressional Republicans are hoping to pass it via the budget reconciliation process, a mechanism for passing fiscal legislation while waiving the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and sidelining the minority party.

Musk told ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ the legislation ‘undermines the work’ done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

He called it a ‘massive spending bill’ that ‘increases the budget deficit.’

However, Republican supporters of the bill have contended that the kind of spending cuts Musk is looking for, and the kind DOGE outlined, cannot be done via the reconciliation process. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself pledged in a public statement after Musk’s comments that House Republicans would tackle DOGE cuts – albeit in a different vehicle than the ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Reconciliation primarily deals with mandatory government funding that Congress must change by amending the law itself, like federal safety net programs.

The White House is also planning to send a package of proposed spending cuts to Congress next week, including cuts outlined by DOGE, that target discretionary government spending. Discretionary spending refers to the cash flows that Congress controls annually via the budget appropriations process.

Other supporters of the bill, like Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said its focus was on people outside of Musk’s wealth class.

‘The bill strikes the proper balance between rooting out fraud to achieve savings and not impacting citizens who rely on government programs. The biggest winners for a change are not billionaires like Musk but middle-class families who will see the bulk of savings returned to them in the form of real tax relief,’ Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.

‘That’s who President Trump and House Republicans set out to help.’

A second House Republican who requested anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital that Musk did ‘put a lot of work in’ with DOGE but argued he was wrong on the facts.

‘I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that he didn’t really have a handle on the process,’ the House Republican said. ‘So, you know, we really have to bake the DOGE cuts into the budget rather than through reconciliation.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Musk for comment via Tesla but did not immediately hear back.

The White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s public statement about fiscal hawks’ concerns about the bill. 

Miller said, ‘DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending. (Eg the federal bureaucracy). Under Senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill. So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill. The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs. Instead, it includes the single largest welfare reform in American history.’

On the other side of the House GOP Conference, fiscal hawks who also had issues with the legislation rallied around Musk’s comments.

‘I share Mr. Musk’s concerns about the short-term adverse effect on the federal deficit of the limited spending reductions in the BBB. Debt markets remain concerned about US total debt and annual deficits,’ said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md.

The Maryland Republican voted ‘present’ on the reconciliation bill last week.

‘Hopefully the Senate will take those concerns into consideration as the legislative process moves forward,’ Harris said.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the lone House Republican to vote against the bill, posted on X, ‘Hopefully, the Senate will succeed where the House missed the moment. Don’t hope someone else will cut spending someday, know it has been done this Congress.’

‘Despite pleas to step back and look at the sum of the parts passed by 11 different committees, this bill was rushed to the floor when it should have been fixed,’ Davidson said.

Musk announced late on Wednesday that he was stepping away from his federal government role because his ‘scheduled time as a Special Government Employee’ was coming ‘to an end.’

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bid farewell to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Wednesday night X post, ending his tenure as the face of the agency as it shifts to a new phase in President Donald Trump’s second term. 

‘As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,’ Musk said on X. ‘The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.’

Musk has been the public face of DOGE since Trump signed an executive order establishing the office on Jan. 20. DOGE has since ripped through federal government agencies in a quest to identify and end government overspending, corruption and fraud.

After Musk’s departure, a senior White House official told Fox News Digital that DOGE will operate as it has always operated and that the agency is ‘part of the DNA of this federal government.’

The official added that DOGE now operates in ‘nearly every federal government agency department’ with the ‘sole job’ of cutting waste, fraud and abuse with the goal of efficiency.

‘The DOGE employees at their respective agency or department will be reporting to and executing the agenda of the president through the leadership of each agency or department head,’ the official said. 

In a post on X, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said, ‘The work DOGE has done to eliminate government waste and corruption — the rot embedded deep within Washington — is among the most valuable services ever rendered to government. And the work has only just begun.’

While Musk has been the public face of DOGE for months, he was not an employee of the United States DOGE Service and did not report to the acting DOGE administrator, Amy Gleason, according to a court filing in March that shed additional light on the internal workings of the office.

Gleason, who has been described by her peers as a ‘world-class talent,’ previously worked for the United States Digital Service, which was founded in 2014 by former President Barack Obama as a technology office within the Executive Office of the President.

DOGE is a temporary cross-departmental organization that was established to slim down and streamline the federal government. The group itself will be dissolved on July 4, 2026, according to Trump’s executive order.

Musk’s tenure with DOGE resulted in an estimated $175 billion in savings through a combination of asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment deletion and other cost-cutting measures, according to the agency’s website, which was last updated on May 26.

The savings amount to $1,086.96 per taxpayer, according to the website. 

Amid Musk’s work with DOGE, Democrats and activists have staged protests against the tech billionaire and his companies, including working to tank Tesla stocks. 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Elizabeth Pritchard contributed to this report.

As the White House trims over 100 aides from its National Security Council staff, some former officials and analysts are asking if the smaller team can meet the demands of a fast-moving and dangerous global security environment.

Roughly half of the NSC’s 350-person team will depart in what the White House is calling a ‘right-sizing’ of a historically bureaucratic body composed largely of career diplomats – many of whom are seen as out of step with the president’s agenda.

Aides originally on loan from agencies like the State Department and the Pentagon are being sent back to their home departments. Political appointees placed on administrative leave have been told the White House will find other roles for them elsewhere in the administration.

Some former NSC officials told Fox News Digital it’s too early to tell whether the overhaul will result in a more efficient agency – or one ill-equipped to deliver timely intelligence for national security decisions.

Privately, national security sources questioned whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is currently serving as interim national security advisor, might be paring back the agency to avoid internal power struggles once he returns to his original post.

Michael Allen, a former senior director at the NSC, said the staffing changes reflect President Donald Trump’s desire for direct control over key decisions.

‘I think he wants people to bring decisions to him earlier than previous presidents,’ Allen told Fox News Digital.

The NSC has charted rocky waters since it lost national security advisor Mike Waltz following the inadvertently publicized Signal chat. His deputy, Alex Wong, also recently departed the agency, and other aides who had a large impact on the administration’s early foreign policy decisions were pushed out in Friday’s restructuring.

Eric Trager, the senior director for Middle East issues who traveled with envoy Steve Witkoff for some of his Iran negotiations, is out. So is Andrew Peek, senior director for Europe and Eurasia, who helped coordinate the approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors. 

‘This happens naturally on NSCs, the kind of stasis we saw in the Biden administration is highly untypical,’ said Victoria Coates, former deputy national security advisor to Trump. 

She noted that President Ronald Reagan had six national security advisors over two terms as president, in addition to two acting NSAs. 

‘For the president, he has legitimate concerns about the NSC from the first term, given what happened, and then, you know, there’s no sugar-coating it: the situation with Signalgate was a problem for NSA Waltz,’ Coates went on. ‘The president is taking actions to get the NSC into a condition that he would have complete confidence in it.’

With a slimmer NSC, the president is expected to lean more heavily on Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for his daily intelligence briefings.

‘One thing that makes this administration unique is that it’s the president himself and a small circle of advisors who truly matter and make decisions,’ said Brian Katulis, a former NSC official and fellow at the Middle East Institute. ‘They just don’t see the need for ongoing interagency meetings like in previous administrations.’

Katulis added that the biggest risk isn’t necessarily a lack of intelligence – but a lack of coordination.

‘Rather than gaps in intel or knowledge, what I’d worry more about is whether different agencies are singing from the same sheet of music,’ he said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment on Friday’s cuts and their intent. 

Others argue that the NSC has become bloated and is in need of a reset.

‘The NSC under Democratic presidents grows to 300, 400 people,’ said former Trump NSC official Alex Gray. ‘It becomes its own department.’

‘When I was there, we took it down to about 110 people doing policy – and it could probably go down another 50 and still be effective,’ he said.

‘Do you want an NSC that formulates and directs policy, or one that gives the president advice, lets him decide, and then implements it? You don’t need hundreds of people to do that.’

But the NSC is the primary agency tasked with making sure other agencies are in line with the president’s agenda. 

‘Rather than preparing options for him, they should take his direction and implement it,’ said Coates.  But, she added, ‘if you take it down too far, it’s not going to have the manpower to implement those directions from the White House into the departments and agencies which are always bigger and better funded than the NSC.’ 

‘How many heads do you have to bash together to get them to do what the president wants them to do? Our experience was in the first term that we needed a fair amount of heft on our end to get them to do stuff they didn’t want to do, like designate the IRGC as an FTO, for example,’ Coates added. 

Even with a leaner staff, the NSC remains responsible for managing critical global challenges – from Iran nuclear talks and the war in Ukraine to military competition with China.

That puts added pressure on Rubio, who will bear the blame if any crucial intelligence slips through the cracks.

‘The big issue is the national security advisor needs to make sure the president has all the information he needs to make a decision,’ Allen said.

Fox News’ Diana Stancy contributed to this report.