President Donald Trump plans to pardon former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez, a White House official said. The official who confirmed the planned pardon on Friday wasn't authorized to reveal the news by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Vázquez pleaded guilty last August to a campaign finance violation in a federal case that authorities say also involved a former FBI agent and a Venezuelan banker. Her sentencing was set for later this month. Federal prosecutors had been seeking one year behind bars. Vázquez was the U.S. territory's first former governor to plead guilty to a crime, specifically accepting a donation from a foreigner for her 2020 political campaign.

A federal judge has given the Justice Department permission to release transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of underage girls in Florida. The case ultimately ended without any federal charges being filed against the millionaire sex offender. U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said Friday that a recently passed federal law ordering the release of records related to the cases overrode the usual rules about grand jury secrecy. The new law compels the Justice Department, FBI and federal prosecutors to release later this month the materials they've amassed during investigations into Epstein. When the documents will be released is unknown.

A divided federal appeals court has thrown out an agreement that would've allowed accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty in a deal sparing him the risk of execution for al-Qaida's 2001 attacks. Friday's decision undoes an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles. It suggests no quick end to the long struggle by the U.S. military and successive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the deadliest attacks on the United States. Mohammed is accused of developing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

A Connecticut man whose parents were kidnapped after he took part in a $245 million Bitcoin theft has pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges and has agreed to testify against his co-defendants. That is according to court documents unsealed this week in federal court in Washington. Veer Chetal, from Danbury, is one of three men charged with stealing 4,100 Bitcoins from a victim in Washington. Court documents say that a week after the theft, Chetal's parents were kidnapped briefly in Danbury in a failed ransom plot aimed at Chetal. Seven men were arrested in the kidnapping. Chetal's lawyer declined to comment Friday.