A federal judge in Manhattan, P. Kevin Castel, has given the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, a two-week deadline to provide a written update on "the status of all investigations and proceedings against" a supervisory special agent of the FBI, David Chaves, "or any other person making or concealing unauthorized disclosures related to insider trading investigations."

The judge ordered additional reports to continue after the end of each calendar quarter.

Judge Castel's order, dated March 1, stopped short of the dismissal or evidentiary hearing that lawyers for the defendant in the case, William Walters, had requested.

Yet in some ways, it went even further, suggesting that leaks to the press in other insider trading investigations "and the role of Chaves and possibly other special agents in leaks ought to be the subject of the pending criminal investigation."

President George W. Bush is publicly entertaining the idea of a special prosecutor to investigate possible relationships between Russia and President Trump's circle, the New York Times reports:

In a television interview to promote a new book of his paintings, Mr. Bush indicated that important questions were raised by reported contacts between Russian officials and Mr. Trump's associates during last year's election campaign. Mr. Trump forced out his national security adviser for withholding information about a call with Russia's ambassador.

When I wrote back in early December about the similarities between Donald Trump and President Kennedy, I didn't quite realize how much more there would be. Since then, we've had:

• The Yemen raid: Trump's Bay of Pigs.

• A New York Times report that Trump aide Stephen Bannon was reading "The Best and the Brightest," a book that is in significant ways about the Kennedy administration.

• A Trump plan for a significant increase in military spending, following in Kennedy's footsteps.

• Trump's speech last night to a joint session of Congress echoed Kennedy in three ways.

First, it echoed the "torch" imagery and language of Kennedy's inaugural.

Illegal leaks to the press of classified or grand jury information can undercut precisely the values — freedom, civil liberties, and the rule of law — of which Mr. Trump's critics fancy themselves ardent defenders, I write in my column this week. Please check the column out at the New York Sun (here) and Newsmax (here).

Donald Trump's complaints about press bias are the topic of my column for the Sunday Las Vegas Review-Journal. Please check the full column out here.

General Mike Flynn's case isn't the only one where leaks by the FBI — "illegal leaks," as President Trump calls them — are cause for concern. My Sunday column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal is about the Billy Walters "insider trading" case, where a new court filing highlights the government's failure to act to prevent the leaks and its making "false and misleading" statements to the court about them. Please read the whole column here.

President Trump's visit with Prime Minister Netanyahu was the topic of my column from last week: "If Flynn eventually does need replacing, Bolton could also fit in the national security adviser role," I wrote in the piece, which was published February 13. The New York Times reported February 18 that Ambassador Bolton is one of four people President Trump is interviewing to replace General Flynn. We'll see if Mr. Bolton is the eventually choice, but for the moment, I feel at least a bit prescient. Please check out the whole column at the New Boston Post (here), New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The proposal by professional baseball to change the rules so that extra innings would start with a runner on second base is the topic of my column this week for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It symbolizes problems with contemporary America that go well beyond baseball. Please check the full column out by clicking here.

A New York-based FBI agent who played a leading role in a string of recent insider trading prosecutions is under criminal investigation for what federal prosecutors, in a recent court filing, call "unquestionable misconduct by an agent of the Government...improper and inexcusable."

It's the sort of story that ordinarily might be splashed across the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — except that in this case, the misconduct of which the FBI agent, David Chaves, is suspected was leaking grand jury information to the Times and the Journal.

Please read the full column at the New Boston Post (here), New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

In response to Stephen Bannon, a Democratic member of Congress from Florida, Stephanie Murphy, last week introduced a bill barring political aides from NSC meetings. The legislation already has 74 co-sponsors. A press release from Ms. Murphy promised, "My bill will help depoliticize national security." My Las Vegas Review-Journal column this week looks at the Kennedy administration precedents for political involvement in foreign policy. Please check the full column out by clicking here.

Libertarian — or "classical liberal" — law professor Richard Epstein writes about President Trump's executive orders: "back off, or resign, or both, before it is too late."

My column this week is about Obama, Trump, and this past weekend's furor over a temporary ban on refugees from certain countries:

Regardless of whether you think the temporary ban was a good idea or a bad idea, or a good idea poorly executed and poorly communicated, one point that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves is that, while Mr. Trump mis-stepped here, the groundwork for it was put in place significantly by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Please read the full column at the New Boston Post (here), the New York Sun (here), and Newsmax (here).

President Trump should consider naming someone who isn't a judge, and maybe isn't even a law school graduate, to the Supreme Court, I write in my Las Vegas Review-Journal column. Please check the full column out by clicking here.

A wave of hiring in Florida by financial-services firms is the topic of a fine article in Bloomberg Businessweek. It reports that "in Deutsche Bank's case, the Jacksonville campus has grown into the company's second-largest U.S. location. The bank has about 2,000 employees there—up from 1,400 in 2013—and plans to add more in 2017."

Also:

According to Jones Lang LaSalle, high-end corporate office space in Jacksonville can be leased for about $22 a square foot, cheaper than all but four major U.S. cities tracked by the company. That's about a quarter the rate in New York. Banks pay Jacksonville employees about 30 percent less on average than those in New York, according to Cathy Chambers, a senior vice president with the JaxUSA Partnership, a division of the local chamber of commerce. A financial analyst, for example, might earn $67,000 in Jacksonville, compared with $99,700 in New York....

Instead of just "block grant it to the states," how about the option of "get rid of the program altogether, and if some state or town or county or city wants to tax its people to have the program, good luck to them"? My column this week looks at the limits of the "block grant it to the states" solution often favored by Republicans in Washington. Please check out the full column at the New Boston Post (here), New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).