Cross-Examination

• Trump hit with three more charges: On Thursday, Special Counsel Jack Smith announced that an additional three criminal charges have been raised against Donald Trump in Smith’s ongoing investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The obstruction charges include accusing Trump of acting to delete surveillance footage at his Mar-a-Lago residence after he had received a subpoena for materials at the estate. The new charges also reveal that Smith now has the Iran document in question that Trump was recorded boasting about and showing a reporter. Of note, these new charges likely serve to push back any potential trial date, maybe well past the 2024 election. Finally, our remaining tongue-in-cheek question is this: Did Trump delete this surveillance footage by smashing it with a hammer or wiping it with a cloth or something?

• Senate passes NDAA: By a vote of 86 to 11, the Senate passed the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act, funding the Pentagon to the tune of $886 billion in Fiscal Year 2024. Of note, the GOP amendment banning the use of taxpayer funding for abortion in the military was not included due to Democrat opposition. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has continued to hold the line on his demand that the Hyde Amendment prohibiting government funding of abortion be upheld. The House’s version of the defense bill includes the prohibition on abortion funding. The two chambers will now seek to work on a compromise to send to Joe Biden.

• A detransitioner’s testimony: Chloe Cole appeared before a House Judiciary subcommittee on Thursday, her 19th birthday, to tell her heart-wrenching story of how her “childhood was ruined” by the deceitful “transgender” crusade. “What message do I want to bring to American teenagers and their families?” Cole asked in her opening statement. “I didn’t need to be lied to. I needed compassion. I needed to be loved. I need to be getting therapy to help me work through my issues, not affirmed to my delusion that by transforming into a boy, it would solve all my problems.” She went on to describe her continuing litany of medical problems due to her having received both puberty blockers and a double mastectomy at the age of 15. She related how she and her parents were deceived and emotionally manipulated by medical experts, who simply rubber-stamped her for gender “transitioning” with no second thought. Of import, she noted that she only became suicidal at age 16 — after “transitioning.”

• Xi backs out of GHG commitments: In news that should come as a surprise to no one, Chinese President Xi Jinping pulled out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to curb his nation’s carbon emissions after 2030. Obviously, Joe Biden’s climate czar John Kerry utterly failed earlier this month in his mission to seek climate concessions from Xi. Indeed, China’s strongman has done the opposite, as he correctly recognizes that he needs more energy to fuel his drive for world economic domination. As Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, warns regarding the Chinese Communist Party, “Its goal is to amass more power at just about any expense, and they simply don’t care about the progressive causes that the Biden administration has been desperate to get them on board with.”

• California’s bad math: Nearly 600 STEM professionals have signed a letter sent to the California Department of Education objecting to the newly proposed woke mathematics curriculum, warning that the new framework will serve to hold back the development of low-income children in the STEM fields. Speaking of inconvenient math, a recent study found that California’s decreasing population, now three straight years in a row of people moving out, is having a significant negative impact on tax revenue. In 2021, the Golden State lost over $341 million in tax revenue thanks to its shrinking population. But the bad math isn’t just lost tax revenue. Another study found that emergency room wait times in California have drastically increased over the last decade, leading to overcrowding as “capacity has largely failed to match the rise in patient demand.” Despite recent losses, California’s population grew by 4.2% between 2011 and 2021, but the number of emergency departments decreased from 339 to 326. That might be another reason people are fleeing the state.

• Good news: Mountain Valley Pipeline victory: The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) has finally had the last roadblock preventing its construction removed. On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals order blocking the bipartisan Congress-approved construction of the 303-mile natural gas pipeline. The Fourth Circuit had stopped the project from moving forward after ecofascist groups sued. West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin praised the ruling: “The Supreme Court has spoken and this decision to let construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline move forward again is the correct one. I am relieved that the highest court in the land has upheld the law Congress passed and the President signed.”

Headlines

• “Smoking-gun documents” prove Facebook censored Americans on behalf of White House, Jim Jordan says (Fox News)

• Hunter Biden contradicts dad’s claim nobody in family “made money from China” (Fox News)

• White House says no chance Biden would pardon son Hunter (National Review)

• Biden admin ignored warnings about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, military leaders say (Free Beacon)

• Army in Niger backs coup as U.S. forces in the country assess situation (NBC News)

• Dianne Feinstein aide awkwardly interrupts her during vote (Washington Examiner)

• Gas prices across U.S. rise to eight-month high (Daily Wire)

• Campaign finance charge dropped from case against Sam Bankman-Fried (AP)

• One in six Democrats believes violence is justified to restore abortion (Washington Stand)

• Policy: Patients should be allowed to use health savings accounts for direct primary care (RedState)

• Satire: Mayorkas testifies before Congress that he is not bald (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.