The FBI’s new Joint Mission Center has made headway by pinpointing suspects and exposing dubious funding channels linked to violent protests across state lines. This effort has also laid the groundwork for building criminal cases, as shared by FBI Co-Deputy Director Chris Raia in an interview with News Media.

Speaking in an exclusive session at FBI headquarters, Raia revealed that the multi-agency mission center has transitioned from merely gathering intelligence to probing the financial scaffolding that supports political violence, aiming to dismantle these networks efficiently.

“We’ve tracked funding from dubious sources,” Raia stated. “Identifying suspects is one step forward, but securing indictments or convictions remains a different challenge altogether.”

Raia’s remarks arrive amidst a crackdown by federal prosecutors, under the guidance of acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, focusing on nonprofits allegedly tied to violent protests and possible illegal funding activities.

As News Media exclusively disclosed on Monday, a grand jury probe led by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, targets American communist tech mogul Neville Roy Singham. Since 2017, he has reportedly funneled nearly $285 million into a web of nonprofits, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

A grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking financial records related to the Singham network, according to the sources. Raia didn’t speak specifically about the Singham case.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama is prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center for alleged bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in a case in which prosecutors allege SPLC executives paid an informant who helped coordinate transportation, logistics and communications for the 2017 “Unite the Right” protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to the death of a young woman, Heather Heyer.

But the comments from Raia provide the clearest public indication yet that the FBI’s Joint Mission Center, established earlier this year to coordinate the bureau’s response to domestic political violence, is producing tangible investigative results.

The center brings together counterterrorism, cyber, counterintelligence and financial investigators and specialists from the Treasury Department and IRS to trace funding streams, identify criminal actors and build prosecutable cases.

In late September, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump issued his seventh National Security Presidential Memorandum, entitled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Political Violence,” or “NSPM-7.” The FBI tasked its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or JTTFs, to widen their lens to investigate far-left threats in the U.S.

Last year, Raia worked as assistant deputy in charge of the FBI’s New York field office, which successfully convicted a protester, Tarek Bazrouk, charged with hate crimes related to the violent assault of Jewish victims.

In early December, the Justice Department issued a memo, “Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” directing law enforcement agencies to investigate “anti-fascist” actors with “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.” The directive also called for the investigation and prosecution of tax crimes in which “extremist groups are suspected of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service.”

FBI Director Kash Patel named Raia to the position of co-deputy director of the FBI in January after the departure of Dan Bongino from the post.

By March, the Trump administration’s FBI budget included the creation of the Joint Mission Center. Agents assigned to the Joint Mission Center are working “hot and heavy,” he said, to separate allegedly illicit funding from legitimate financial activity supporting nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups.

“It does go through some very legitimate hoops, and it is commingled with very legitimate money as well,” Raia said. “So, splitting that out just takes time.”

Raia said the bureau has already identified at least a “portion of the actors” believed to be involved in financing or facilitating violent protest activity but declined to identify investigative targets because the cases remain active.

“We’re working every day to bring an indictable case to the Department of Justice,” Raia said.

Raia said the bureau created the Joint Mission Center because violent political unrest has evolved into what officials view as a “hybrid threat” requiring expertise that extends beyond traditional counterterrorism investigations.

“We brought all those folks together from different divisions at headquarters. And we brought them together to sit in the same space and really be a clearinghouse for these types of events that happen,” Raia said.

Singham and the organizations in his network didn’t return requests for comment. A spokesman for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

As part of the investigation, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met earlier this year with Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon, who pledged to aid the FBI’s effort to trace how Singham allegedly routed money through a network of nonprofit organizations that investigators believe supported protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other causes, the sources said.

The Singham investigation illustrates the type of financial case the FBI’s Joint Mission Center was created to pursue: identifying and dismantling the funding networks that investigators believe enable recurring episodes of political violence across the country.

Raia cited violent anti-ICE demonstrations in Minneapolis and at Delaney Hall; an immigration detention center in Newark, N.J.; the attempted terror plot at UFC 250 in Washington, D.C.; and other incidents that federal authorities believe demonstrate recurring patterns of organized violence.

As News Media previously reported, activists associated with the Singham network have participated in anti-ICE demonstrations at Delaney Hall and protests in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.

“We’ve seen it, and we’re going to continue to see it: The violent protester that shows up in Portland will be a violent protester that shows up at Delaney Hall and vice versa,” Raia said. “This same cast of characters continues to show up, and they continue to invade and infiltrate the legitimate First Amendment protesters who are exercising their constitutionally given First Amendment right.

“We know these violent folks are coming in and seeding into there and creating chaos, creating violence, causing us to have to get involved. And we’re doing a good job getting in front of these folks and disrupting those folks.”

Raia said the FBI has disrupted numerous violent actors over the past 15 months, including during anti-ICE demonstrations in New York City, and that the bureau is increasingly shifting its focus beyond arrests at protest scenes to the financial infrastructure supporting those activities.

“We’re really looking at attacking the money. Who’s funding these folks? Because we know somebody is, at the end of this, funding these folks,” Raia said.

Ren McEachern, the former acting unit chief of the FBI’s International Corruption Unit, said following financial trails is often the fastest way to expose the organizations, individuals and motivations behind coordinated political violence.

“When you see what appear to be disorganized or fragmented protest groups appearing and reappearing, well organized, in different areas of the country, you have to determine the funding sources to understand the organization,” McEachern said. “Often, if you follow the money, it tells a different story of organized collection and distribution of funds.”

Sporting berets, sunglasses, gold chains, shorts, and Spider-Man Air Jordans, Travis Kelce’s entourage made a stylish entrance into New York City for what has been touted as the wedding of the year.

Sweeping in with their unique mix of NFL flair, these men, close to Kelce, attended Thursday night’s events with their own brand of charisma and confidence.

Beneath the surface of this fashionable display, however, a more nuanced narrative was playing out among the ranks of Kelce’s guests.

It appears that everyone on Team Travis received an invitation to his nuptials with Taylor Swift, but the invitations were not all identical.

Close confidants of Kelce, including his longtime friends from Cleveland, the branding twins, and fellow tight ends, found themselves ushered into the exclusive rehearsal dinner on Thursday. Meanwhile, a larger contingent from his wider NFL circle was directed to join the 1,000-guest celebration scheduled for Friday.

The sensitive, semi-snubbed bros left on the sidelines are believed to be quietly seething at being frozen out of the more star-studded dinner the night before, sources say.

For more than a decade, we’ve watched the hairline cracks in Swift’s famously tight Girl Squad become painful fractures. 

This time, the friendship politics threatening to upstage the big day are playing out not among the bridesmaids, but the boys. Turns out 250lb tough guys who get hit for a living have feelings too.

‘There is a general invite to everyone on the team,’ a source told the Daily Mail. ‘But it doesn’t extend to some of the front office people, so there’s some feelings there. And also, not everyone on the team has the same invite. 

‘A few who he’s closer to have more info and it sounds like there’s something smaller that they get to go to.’

The groom’s inner circle were among the first to appear outside an upscale NYC hotel – made up of the tight-knit Cleveland crew who knew Kelce long before his three Super Bowl rings and pop star girlfriend.

Aric Jones, Kelce’s oldest friend, suited up for the occasion. The two go all the way back to a Cleveland Heights hockey rink in 1995, when both were five.

Alongside him were Aaron and André Eanes, the twins who built the Kelce brand, cutting sharp figures in suits. The Cleveland-born founders of A&A Management have been the architects of his rise since 2013, turning him into one of America’s most marketable athletes long before Taylor Swift entered the picture.

Former NFL tight end Ross Travis, Kelce’s other right-hand man, had a look all his own: black beret, gold chain, dripping in confidence. Sarah Blackburn King dressed to impress alongside him, stunning in a gold dress with a matching bag. 

George Kittle, the San Francisco 49ers tight end and one of Kelce’s closest friends in the NFL, made quite an entrance with wife Claire. 

She stunned in a black dress with a slicked-back pony, while her husband wore a light suit with shorts, sunglasses and Spider-Man-inspired Nike Air Jordan 1 sneakers. 

Kittle had already confirmed he was coming but admitted earlier this week he’d been given almost no details. ‘I genuinely don’t know where I’m going,’ he said. 

The NFL couple only made it to New York on Thursday morning after being delayed by airport issues in Nashville on Wednesday night. They also spent time with Travis and Taylor last week at his ‘Tight End University’ NFL networking event.

Completing the groom’s contingent was Erin Andrews, the Fox Sports reporter who helped make the whole love story happen – stunning in a dress as she arrived on the arm of her husband, Jarret Stoll, the former NHL star and two-time Stanley Cup champion.

It was Andrews who, months before Swift and Kelce went public, urged the pop star on her podcast to give the tight end a chance. ‘Taylor, please try our friend Travis,’ she said. ‘He is fantastic.’ The two couples have since vacationed together in Montana. 

And then there’s the outer ring. Several of Kelce’s Chiefs teammates and football friends – invited to Friday’s main event but pointedly left off the smaller dinner the night before – are said to be privately unhappy at being assigned to what insiders called the outer edge of the celebration: welcome at the party, but not at the table.

The contrast in wedding arrangements extends to the guest accommodations. 

While some of Kelce’s Chiefs teammates are reportedly staying at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, his closest friends appear to be enjoying the VIP treatment at the considerably swankier hotel they were spotted leaving. 

Among those spotted on Swift’s side of the wedding was close collaborator Jack Antonoff. The star producer and Bleachers frontman has been one of Swift’s best friends in the music business. 

When he married actress Margaret Qualley in New Jersey in 2023, Swift flew in and delivered a 15-minute roast of the newlyweds.

Also in town were Shane and Paige Buechele. The former Chiefs quarterback and his wife – part of the extended Kelce-Swift inner circle since Taylor’s first season on the sidelines – were spotted earlier this week dining at Meduza Mediterrania, the restaurant Kelce co-owns with Patrick Mahomes.

Among the wider NFL and broadcasting set to arrive was Andrew Whitworth, the former offensive tackle turned Amazon Prime pundit, who won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams in 2022 and has been a fixture in the league’s inner circle ever since. His Prime colleague Ryan Fitzpatrick, another former quarterback, was there too. 

For now, everyone’s smiling. But with plenty of celebrations still to come – and lots of bruised egos under one roof – this party is only just getting started.