Cross-Examination

• SCOTUS to hear arguments in Trump immunity case: This will be an extraordinarily busy week for Donald Trump and his legal team, even by their own head-spinning standards. Not only have opening arguments begun today in Trump’s trumped-up hush-money case in Manhattan, but later this week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Trump’s bid to secure criminal immunity for attempting to overturn the rigged 2020 presidential election. And whereas the former case is sensational, this latter case is the one that legal analysts say poses the most serious threat to Trump. As SCOTUSblog reports: “In the final argument scheduled for its 2023-2024 term, the Supreme Court will hear argument on Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s historic bid for criminal immunity. The question before the justices is whether Trump can be tried on criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The court’s answer will determine not only whether Trump’s trial in Washington, D.C., before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, originally scheduled for March 4 but now on hold, can go forward, but also whether the former president’s trials in Florida and Georgia can proceed.” If the Democrats can’t ultimately succeed in putting Trump behind bars or at least knocking him off the ballot, they can at the very least bury him in legal matters and thereby keep him off the campaign trail in the crucial weeks and months ahead. As Trump said this morning before entering Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom: “These are all Biden trials. This is done as election interference. Everybody knows it. I’m here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and lots of other places campaigning. … I just want people to understand that. This is done with purposes of hurting the opponent of the worst president in the history of our country.”

• The shame of Columbia continues … and spreads to Yale: Last week, we covered the despicable goings-on at Columbia University in Manhattan, where pro-Hamas protests were allowed to fester, and where the school’s Jewish students have been forced to either flee the campus or live in fear. Clearly, Columbia has no class — literally and figuratively — as the university has also caved to pressure and canceled all in-person classes today ahead of the start of the Jewish holy days of Passover. It seems that the administration is fearful for the safety of its Jewish students. As the New York Post reports, “Embattled President Minouche Shafik, who has vowed to crack down on antisemitism, told students in an email that was also shared to the Ivy League college’s website that they ‘need a reset’ as the heated demonstrations enter the sixth day.” Said Shafik in a written statement: “I am deeply saddened by what is happening on our campus. Our bonds as a community have been severely tested in ways that will take a great deal of time and effort to reaffirm.” You’re telling us. Elsewhere in the Ivies, the gangrenous spread of Jew hatred has hit New Haven, Connecticut, where riot-ready police paid a visit to Yale University’s campus and arrested some sick young privileged puppies, as hundreds of “students” protested against the existence of the Jewish state. And lest anyone think these are peaceful protests, think again. The police presence comes in the wake of a Jewish student and journalist who was stabbed in the eye with a Palestinian flag on Saturday night. One wonders: What kind of parents would send their children to such a depraved institution?

• Biden admin sanctions IDF amid reelection concerns: With friends like these… That must be the sentiment coming out of Israel after the Biden administration issued sanctions against the Israel Defense Forces’s 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion. According to the State Department, these sanctions are not due to any action of the IDF since its current war with Hamas but rather are for supposed human rights violations before the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack. The Biden administration pointed to a 1997 law that prohibits U.S. foreign aid and defense training programs from going to any foreign security, police, or military unions credibly alleged to be guilty of human rights violations. While the IDF’s 97th has not been involved in any combat operations in Gaza, the Biden administration’s timing of this targeted and unprecedented action against America’s closest ally in the Middle East is telling. Clearly, Joe Biden is primarily motivated by reelection concerns. He aims to placate the radical anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian segment of the Democrat base, which has been demanding an immediate ceasefire. Biden has increasingly pressured Israel into meeting his demands of reaching a ceasefire before Hamas is fully eradicated.

• Biden’s Department of “Justice” clears anti-Catholic FBI: The FBI targeted Catholics last year and got caught doing it. We know this to be true because of the infamous “Richmond Memo,” which came out of the FBI’s Richmond field office and was circulated to multiple offices and argued for investigating “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism in radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology.” Whatever “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” is. But last week, Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice cleared the bureau of any real wrongdoing, saying that the bureau “violated professional standards but showed ‘no evidence of malicious intent,’” according to The New York Times. All of this is just one more reason to do away with the FBI — to end it, to abolish it, and to rebuild it under new management and with a better mission.

• Biden using federal agency to get more voters in Michigan: Joe Biden is having all sorts of trouble in the crucial electoral state of Michigan, whether he’s trying to placate the pro-Hamas “Death to America” wing of his party or trying to do away with the internal combustion engine in favor of unwanted and overpriced electric vehicles. And now we learn that he’s cheating. “Earlier this month, my colleagues and I sent a letter to the SBA [Small Business Administration] inquiring into their Memorandum of Understanding with the Michigan Department of State,” said Congressman Roger Williams, chairman of the House Small Business Committee. “It appears that the SBA is diverting its resources away from assisting Main Street so it can register Democrat voters.” The, er, outreach has happened specifically in areas filled with young and minority voters. If you thought Zuckerbucks were a problem, you should be outraged at the idea that the federal government is using taxpayer dollars — the only dollars available to a bureaucrat — to subsidize votes for any politician.

• Excoriated Windy City mayor plays race card: Recently, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, the Democrat mayor of the self-declared “sanctuary city,” faced the wrath of his constituents as he was pressing for a vote for more funding for migrants. One black woman wearing a red MAGA cowboy hat blasted Johnson: “We need that money in my neighborhood. We need that money on my block. … So I’m asking y'all to use our tax money for our people.” Residents’ frustration has grown with Chicago’s Democrat city leaders and specifically with Johnson, as they have already spent over $300 million on the migrant crisis. During the meeting, another woman warned, “Vote for the money for these immigrants today, and we [are] coming for those seats, you can believe that.” Another lifelong Chicago resident black woman noted that she was not against legal immigration but was opposed to illegal immigration. “I’m not for the sanctuary city,” she said, “and the reason why I’m not for the sanctuary city is because people have waited years to come in here legally.” Meanwhile, Johnson laughed off any notion that his job was in any real jeopardy, calling it the “extreme right-wing” who is “intimidated by the fact that we’ve passed paid time off [for] thousands of workers. We’ve abolished sub-minimum wage, which has its roots in history in slavery.”

• Young women hold conservative positions: While many young women identify as liberal, a recent poll has found that despite this, they tend to hold convictions that are more commonly held by conservatives. The women polled were ages 18 to 24, and 32% of them identified as liberal. Yet the vast majority of these women agreed with statements such as, “It is appropriate to have children wait until they are adults before having irreversible sex-change surgeries”; “When I date someone, it is because I am deciding if I would like to marry them one day”; and, “Every kid should have the opportunity to go to a school of their choice, regardless of their zip code.” According to the poll, 79% agreed that no-bail release was more dangerous for a community, and 74% agreed that “We should take care of our own people like the less fortunate, the homeless, or veterans before taking care of people from other countries.” Some 74% supported school choice, and 69% believed that the government should secure the border to ensure that drugs like fentanyl aren’t easily brought in. A spokeswoman from the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women, Évangéline Faussié, said: “This survey reveals perspectives from young women that have been overlooked or misinterpreted in previous research. It shows that their opinions are far more complex than how they choose to label themselves.”

• Good news: Middle school girls stand up for themselves: Ultimately, for the gender-bending contagion plaguing the nation to be eradicated, there will need to be more young women and girls willing to stand up against it. Thankfully, that is happening. A West Virginia middle school boy who identifies as a girl was allowed to compete in a track and field tournament. Objecting to his inclusion, five middle school girl athletes refused to compete against him. During the shot put and discus throwing events, all five girls “stepped in” and then “stepped out” for each competition to publicly register their names and protest the boy’s inclusion in the girls’ events. One of the girls who engaged in the protests noted that the gender-bending boy won the girls’ shot put championship that day. The more brave girls and women like these who step forward and refuse to accept the nonsense of the gender-bending movement, the sooner this madness will be stopped.

Headlines

• Biden is marking Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal solar power grants (NBC News)

• U.S. House passes $95 billion Ukraine, Israel aid package, sends to Senate (Washington Free Beacon)

• Tennessee workers at VW plant vote to unionize with UAW (The Tennessean)

• States sue to block rules curbing tailpipe emissions in cars, light trucks (Reuters)

• House buying costs hit new record high (PJ Media)

• Texas leads U.S. in job growth, surpassing its previous record for total number of jobs (Just the News)

• Man who lit himself on fire outside of NYC Trump trial identified as antifascist agitator (PM)

• Chicago police officer shot dead and has car taken during commute home (Washington Examiner)

• Explosion rocks military base in Iraq housing Iranian-aligned forces (NY Post)

• Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over failure to prevent deadliest attack in Israel’s history (Fox News)

• Policy: Why making babies in test tubes is not pro-life (The Federalist)

• Humor: Biden claims his uncle’s heart was ripped out during human sacrifice ritual in India (Babylon Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.