The US FBI now seems to act much as the National Enquirer does, as a "catch and kill" tool.

In the case of the Enquirer, this was through buying exclusive rights to inconvenient stories and refusing to publish them. In the case of the FBI, it's by claiming exclusive jurisdiction over incidents and quashing or impeding independent investigation.

See "Former National Enquirer boss breaks his silence on 'catch and kill' as lead witness in Trump trial" (2024) <https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/23/media/national-enquirer-catch...> and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_and_kill> (concept) and <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_and_Kill> (Ronan Farrow book).