Cross-Examination

• Garland contempt? The Justice Department has rebuffed the House Oversight Committee’s request for the audio recording of Special Prosecutor Robert Hur’s interviews with Joe Biden. Back in February, Republicans requested the audio after receiving a redacted transcript of the interviews with Biden done over two days. Recall that Hur was investigating Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, some of which were found at his home in Delaware. Hur concluded the investigation and decided not to recommend charges due in part to Biden being a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” whom a jury would be unlikely to convict “of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” The DOJ is refusing to comply with the House Committee’s demand for the audio, claiming that the redacted transcript is sufficient. Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) responded to the DOJ’s assertions by stating: “The Biden Administration does not get to determine what Congress needs and does not need for its oversight of the executive branch. The American people deserve to hear the actual audio of President Biden’s answers to Special Counsel Hur.” Comer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) have given Attorney General Merrick Garland until today to comply with the House’s demands or be held in contempt of Congress.

• James is still after Trump’s stuff: If things were going swimmingly in New York, one might be able to excuse Attorney General Letitia James’s Trump fetish as a case of idle minds being the devil’s workshop. But things aren’t going swimmingly in the Empire State. Crime is rampant, and people are leaving in droves. And yet. As Newsweek reports, “An insurance company will not be permitted to post a $175 million bond for Donald Trump while he appeals a fraud judgment [and] as a result, New York Attorney General Letitia James will be able to begin enforcement proceedings on Donald Trump’s properties.” “Enforcement proceedings” is, of course, a euphemism for snatching properties. The backstory is that Trump submitted the $175 million bond on April 1, but the court’s filing system rejected it due to missing paperwork, and AG James has claimed that the bond company, Knight Specialty Insurance Company, isn’t authorized in New York. Knight has since resubmitted paperwork to restart the process, but James could move on Trump’s properties in the meantime. Far be it from us to dole out political advice to a hack like James, but our sense is that the sympathy vote will once again side with the former president. Incidentally, Norfolk Southern Railway just announced a $600 million settlement in its class-action train-derailment lawsuit with the residents of East Palestine, Ohio. For some perspective, that settlement number is only a bit more than the original bail amount levied by New York’s corrupt legal system against Trump.

• Is the FBI cooking the crime stats to help Biden? “The fourth quarter 2023 crime report from the FBI, the federal government’s keeper of crime data, is unreliable at best and deceptive at worst.” So say Mark Morgan and Sean Kennedy at the Washington Examiner, adding: “The FBI’s preliminary 2023 data show murder declined by 13.2% across the country and violent crime dropped 5.7% compared to 2022 levels. Various news headlines have reported the FBI’s numbers unquestioningly, claiming murder is ‘plummeting’ and violent crime ‘declined significantly’ to pre-pandemic levels.” With words like “plummeting” and “significantly,” we can’t help but wonder whether these folks are watching the same reality show we are. The problem stems from a failure to communicate. As the Examiner reports: “In 2019, 89% of agencies covering 97% of the population submitted data, but by 2021, that coverage plummeted to less than 63% of departments overseeing just 65% of the population. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City all failed to submit crime data.” This sounds like an invitation to make stuff up and thereby push a political agenda, and the FBI appears to be obliging. For example: “For Baltimore, the FBI reported 225 murders in 2023, but the city reported 262 — which means the FBI left out 37 murders. In Milwaukee, the police department reported a 7% increase in robberies, but the FBI showed a 13% drop. Nashville’s own data tallied more than 6,900 aggravated assaults in 2023, but the FBI counted only 5,941, leaving almost 1,000 of those offenses ‘missing.’” In a way, this seems like the crime-and-punishment version of the Bidenomics disconnect, wherein we’re told just how great the economy is, but we just aren’t buying it. In this case, once again, the mainstream media seem to be lapping up the FBI’s statistics and saying to the people, Who ya gonna believe — us, or your lyin’ eyes?

• Biden admin inflating climate disaster: Another day, another piece of environmental scaremongering from the Biden administration. In this case, it appears that Joe’s Green New Dealers have embraced bad data to make the case that storms, which are part of everyday life, are becoming worse because of climate change. As The Washington Times reports, “Protect the Public’s Trust cited a new study that combed through data used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for its climate and disaster tracking project and found it inflated damage and made inexplicable data calculations that did not factor in obvious contributions to disaster costs, such as an increase in development in coastal regions and other areas vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding or wildfires.” We’re shocked — SHOCKED — to hear that a government agency would cook the books to promote an agenda. To no one’s surprise, we learn that the NOAA data was cited in a November fact sheet from the administration to justify $6 billion in new spending on “climate change” and “environmental justice.” Why, it’s as if Joe Biden’s NOAA were in cahoots with Joe Biden’s FBI.

• Solar power eclipsed: Solar power only generates energy when the sun is shining, which is the biggest drawback to solar power. Yesterday, as a full solar eclipse impacted a significant part of the U.S., not only did those in the full eclipse zone see and feel the sun go dark, but the power grid experienced an energy production downgrade. According to Schneider Capital Group LLC, the amount of solar power energy lost due to the eclipse was 30 gigawatts. The state of Texas saw the biggest energy loss, a total of 17 GW, while the Midwest and Northeast lost an estimated four GW and 4.8 GW, respectively. “The US will lose more than 30 gigawatts of solar energy during today’s total eclipse,” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso observed, adding: “A good reminder the sun doesn’t always shine and solar power alone is not enough. But don’t worry, WY oil, gas & coal producers will continue to step up to keep the lights on across America.” Fortunately, most consumers won’t be impacted by the energy loss, as the majority of the nation’s electricity is still produced by the more reliable sources of fossil fuel.

• EVs decrease in popularity: Speaking of electricity, a recent Gallup poll has found that despite the Biden administration’s push to get the country driving electric vehicles, the vast majority of Americans aren’t buying into the EV-only future. Indeed, fewer Americans are sold on EVs than the year prior, as almost half, or 48%, say they would not consider buying an EV this year. Last year, 41% of Americans said they would not consider an EV. On the flip side, the number of Americans who would seriously consider buying an EV has dropped from 55% last year down to 44% today. The poll was conducted after Joe Biden’s EPA presented its strictest emissions regulations yet, which equate to a de facto EV mandate designed to force 56% of new car sales to be EVs by 2032. Gallup observed: “Unless that market expands greatly in the next few years, it is unlikely auto companies doing business in the U.S. will be able to meet the emissions targets laid out by the Biden administration. Those targets may need to be relaxed further if Biden is reelected, or they may be done away with under a second Trump administration.”

• Illegals on unregistered motorized bikes: When we read this story, our first thought was of those illegal alien gangs in New York City — the ones that zip around on motorbikes and snatch the purses of unsuspecting women, even dragging them along the pavement and into metal posts if need be. Perhaps this same gig will be coming soon to Washington, DC. As The Daily Signal reports: “Many drivers of two-wheeled motorized vehicles are breaking the law in the nation’s capital and don’t appear to be facing any consequences for doing so. Individuals, many of whom entered the country illegally, are acquiring and driving motorbikes to do food deliveries in the District of Columbia, but many of the bikes do not have legal license plates, indicating they aren’t properly registered or insured.” So next time you’re standing in an interminably long line at the DMV, patiently waiting for the privilege of paying an increasingly exorbitant fee to renew your driver’s license, consider the hard truth that it’s sometimes better to be an illegal alien.

• Good news: NAIA protects women athletes: For female college athletes who want to compete fairly against other females, the athletic body for smaller colleges has just ensured that will be the case for their schools. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Council of Presidents voted unanimously to adopt a policy requiring all female athletes who compete in their schools to be exclusively biologically female. The NAIA represents 249 colleges and does not fall under any of the NCAA’s divisions. Regarding the decision, NAIA President Jim Carr explained: “For us, we believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA. … We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was created. You’re allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete.” With its decision, the NAIA avoided the needless complications that other sports-governing organizations have saddled themselves with, like using hormone-level restrictions rather than adhering to the basic binary distinction of biological sex. The NAIA is to be commended for standing boldly for the truth, and this will benefit female athletes in their schools.

Headlines

• New York Appeals Court denies Trump motion to delay hush-money trial, setting up jury selection for next week (Fox News)

• Seven more states sue to block Biden’s student loan handout plan as lawsuits pile up (Fox Business)

• Netanyahu declares “there is a date” for Rafah invasion (NY Post)

• Iran urging its terrorist proxy groups to launch a “large-scale attack” on Israel (Daily Wire)

• Newsom and California Democrats blasted for “gimmicky” $17 billion fix for massive budget deficit (Washington Examiner)

• Lori Lightfoot hired to investigate “worst mayor in America” Tiffany Henyard at $400 per hour (NY Post)

• The feds are coming for “extremist” gamers (The Intercept)

• New poll reveals young women are abandoning churches in “unprecedented numbers” as young men are finally coming back (Not the Bee)

• Satire: Vatican reluctantly sides with God on gender theory (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.