Category: Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

President Donald Trump‘s administration has reached an agreement with Kyiv on the framework of a rare earth mineral deal that Ukrainian officials hope will strengthen ties with the Trump administration and lay the groundwork for a long-term U.S. security commitment.

Newsweek has reached out to the State Department and White House on Tuesday afternoon for comment.

The agreement could be finalized as soon as Friday, with plans underway for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to travel to Washington for a meeting with Trump, a Ukrainian official told the Associated Press.

Another official said the agreement would give Zelensky and Trump a chance to discuss ongoing military aid to Ukraine, making its finalization a priority for Kyiv. The agreement does not include security guarantees. One official said that this would be a topic for discussion when Zelensky and Trump meet.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said Tuesday he’d heard that Zelensky was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”

Trump called it “a very big deal,” adding that it could be worth a trillion dollars. It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things.”

Why This Matters

Negotiations on the deal have advanced despite a recent exchange of sharp rhetoric between Trump and Zelensky over their disagreements on the matter.

Zelensky resisted signing a proposal pushed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during his visit to Kyiv earlier this month and reiterated his objections days later in Munich during a meeting with Vice President JD Vance, arguing that the American plan lacked security guarantees.

In response, Trump criticized Zelensky, calling him “a dictator without elections” and claiming his support among voters was dwindling.

What to Know

Significant progress was made last week during a three-day visit to Ukraine by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.

A Ukrainian official stated that while some technical details still need to be finalized, the draft agreement no longer includes the Trump administration’s contentious proposal to grant the U.S. $500 billion in profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for wartime aid.

Instead, the deal establishes joint ownership of a fund between the U.S. and Ukraine, with Ukraine committing to contribute 50 percent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals oil, and gas. One official described the terms as more favorable for investment, while another said Kyiv had secured key amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.”

Trump said Monday he is optimistic that the United States and Ukraine would soon reach an agreement on a rare earth minerals deal.

“It looks like we’re getting very close,” Trump told reporters at the start of his bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, during which they discussed the situation in Ukraine.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also told reporters on Tuesday that it was “critical that this deal is signed.”

The deal reportedly excludes existing revenue-generating resources, such as those controlled by Naftogaz and Ukrnafta, Ukraine’s largest gas and oil producers.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he would consider extending a potential rare earth metals exploration deal with the U.S. to Ukraine’s occupied regions and called Russia “one of the undisputed leaders in reserves of these rare and rare earth metals.”

“We have them in the North—in Murmansk, in the Caucasus—in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the Far East, in the Irkutsk region, and in Yakutia, in Tuva,” Putin said. “These are quite capital-intensive investments, capital-intensive projects. We would be happy to work together with any foreign partners, including the Americans.”

Putin added that Ukraine’s annexed regions—what he calls Russia’s “new territories”—are also rich in rare earth elements. However, the international community does not recognize Russia’s annexation and continues to consider these regions part of Ukraine.

What People Are Saying

Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister, told the Financial Times on Tuesday: “The minerals agreement is only part of the picture. We have heard multiple times from the US administration that it’s part of a bigger picture.”

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, told told Zarubin on Monday: “We would be ready to offer [cooperation] to our American partners—when I say ‘partners,’ I mean not only administrative and government structures, but also companies—if they showed interest in working together.”

Scott Bessent, Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury, told Fox News on Sunday: “We make money if the Ukrainian people make money.”

What’s Next

The deal remains a “framework agreement”, with unresolved issues like U.S. stake size and jurisdiction, and it still requires approval from Ukraine’s parliament, where it is expected to face debate.

Update: 2/25/25, 3:17 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update: 2/25/25, 3:26 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update: 2/25/25, 3:50 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update: 2/25/25, 4:07 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update: 2/25/25, 7:12 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

The FBI is starting an investigation into the agency’s plan to infiltrate President Donald Trump’s first campaign using two female undercover agents as a honeypot.

According to The Washington Times‘ initial reporting, the investigation was launched in 2015 by FBI Director James Comey and kept off the books. An FBI whistleblower broke the news of the inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee last year.

The plan was said to involve two undercover female agents who had infiltrated the Trump campaign at high-levels.

FBI Director Kash Patel and deputy Director Dan Bongino are now looking for those once-undercover agents.

Initially, the whistleblower noted that the honeypot was a separate operation from Crossfire Hurricane, and sought to uncover no specific crime but was merely a fishing expedition.

“The case had no predicated foundation, so Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file in Sentinel or any other FBI system,” the whistleblower said, according to the disclosure. “The FBI has multiple methods of protecting highly sensitive investigations, so Comey did not have a legitimate reason not to officially create an official investigation file or have a file number.”

The operation was ostensibly shut down after a major newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the undercover agents and prepared to publish it. The FBI’s press office intervened, claiming that releasing the image would jeopardize a confidential FBI informant.

According to the whistleblower, this was a deliberate deception: it was not a undercover informant but indeed an FBI agent.

In the aftermath, one of the undercover agents was reportedly transferred to the CIA, effectively placing her beyond the reach of any potential inquiry. The other received a promotion and is now a high-ranking FBI executive in a major field office.

Additionally, the whistleblower described a culture of silence surrounding the operation as agents were directed never to discuss the matter.

Current and former FBI officials expressed shock and dismay Monday over the news that President Donald Trump had selected a right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic to be the bureau’s deputy director, even as the man picked for the job said he was ready to put partisanship aside. 

On his podcast, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino — who once called the FBI “irredeemably corrupt”— thanked the president for the appointment and suggested that he was prepared to step out of his role as a MAGA warrior. But even as he did so, he repeated the baseless charge that the Justice Department had been “weaponized,” a claim he has frequently brandished to criticize the agency he will now help lead.

“I get it if you are a political opponent of mine that has been involved with proudly celebrating a weaponized justice system, how you don’t understand how a guy like me who discusses partisan content in an opinion show and go and do (an) unquestionably nonpartisan job,” Bongino, also a former Fox News host, said. “I’m going to ask you a simple question: Have you seen what I did before I came here?”

He continued: “I’m committed to service. People play different roles in their lives. People are dads, people are soccer coaches. People are cops and military officers and military enlisted people. People are carpenters, people are plumbers. We play different roles in our life, and each one requires a different skill set.”

Bongino’s conciliatory words did little to reassure skeptics within the FBI, who noted that, in the bureau’s 117-year history, the deputy director has always been a career FBI agent with deep knowledge of how the bureau functions — and not a political appointee selected by the president. 

Neither FBI Director Kash Patel nor Bongino have ever worked at the FBI.

In fact, the FBI Agents Association said in a memo to the workforce that Patel had privately committed to installing an agent as his second in command.  

The group did not comment Monday, and the FBI declined to comment.

Some FBI officials consider the deputy director job more important than the director’s role, because the deputy oversees operations, supervises the heads of field offices and handles some of the most sensitive intelligence in the federal government.

“This is beyond problematic,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI official who retired in 2023. “Any hope that Kash could be steered by having experienced leaders around him is out the window. We now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.”

Some current FBI employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to reporters, were even more blunt. They said they feared Bongino’s appointment spelled the end of an independent FBI and put the bureau’s fearsome investigative and intelligence capabilities in the hands of political actors with radical agendas.

“I didn’t sleep and I want to pack my desk today,” one said.

Another FBI official said he viewed the hiring of Bongino as akin to bringing on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or Oath Keepers leader Stuart Rhodes.

Like those two men, Bongino has become known for both his loyalty to Trump and for trafficking in bizarre and unproven allegations about the FBI and the Capitol riot.  

He once argued that every FBI agent and supervisor who had anything to do with the 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound — which was conducted pursuant to a lawful search warrant — be fired. And he recently claimed without evidence that the FBI knows who placed pipe bombs outside the RNC and DNC the day before the Jan. 6 attack, even though the FBI says it has not identified any suspects and recently asked the public for help.

“Will the deputy director get a security clearance? FBI background checks? Does it matter that he supported the Oath Keepers?” one retired FBI agent said, referring to the far-right group that Rhodes founded. “I doubt it because the director supported Jan. 6th.”

The retired agent spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being targeted by online threats.

Despite the focus on Bongino, many FBI employees tried to keep their heads down and go on with their jobs Monday, current and former officials said.

Bongino worked for two years for the New York Police Department before joining the Secret Service in 1999, where he served for 12 years. He ran unsuccessfully three times as a Republican candidate for office before striking out to build what has become a media empire, including one of the most popular podcasts in the U.S. 

On Monday, Bongino sought to strike an inspiring tone.

“We’re going to re-establish faith in this institution, the good people there, doing their job, hitting the streets, developing sources,” he said. “We’ll have your back. … The FBI belongs to the American people. Doesn’t belong to me, doesn’t belong to anyone else but the American people. But this is the honor of a lifetime, and it’s a serious mission. I plan on implementing that vision.”