Insurrection News: A former Metropolitan DC police officer is reported to have corroborated the story about President Donald Trump grabbing the steering wheel of his limousine and demanding to be driven to the Capitol during the January 6th an assault on the government.

  This confirms the story told to the January 6^th investigating committee by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said she was told of the incident by White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato.

  Meanwhile, text messages sent and received by Secret Service agents around the time of the January 6th insurrection were erased, according to an inspector general.  The NY Times reports according to a letter they obtained that the Secret Service claims many of the agents’ texts around January 6^th were erased as part of a device replacement program even after the inspector general had requested them.

Joe of Arabia: President Joe Biden meets today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a humiliating abandonment of his campaign pledge to treat the man as a pariah. With hat in hand, Biden will try to convince the Saudis to produce more oil to help bring down gasoline prices in the states.

  Biden said, “I think we have an opportunity to reassert what I think we made a mistake walking away from, our influence in the Middle East.”

  The President has to balance that with pressure to say something about bin Salman ordering the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Abortion Test: Indiana’s Republican attorney general says his office will investigate the doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim cross state lines from Ohio to have an abortion. “We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report,” state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News.

  Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, has said she provided care to the 10-year-old after a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her. The girl was six weeks and three days into the pregnancy and Ohio bans the procedure after six weeks. Abortion in Indiana is banned after 22 weeks with some exceptions for medical emergencies.

  Some prominent Republican politicians denied the pregnant 10-year-old ever existed until a suspect was arrested and confessed.

Most Foul: Disgraced and debarred South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh has been charged with the murder of his wife and one of his sons in killings at the family’s secluded hunting estate that went unsolved for a year.

  The 54-year-old Murdaugh has been indicted on two counts of murder charging that he shot his wife, Maggie, 52, with a rifle and his son Paul, 22, with a shotgun, on June 7, 2021. Murdaugh called 911 that night saying he had returned to the hunting lodge to find his wife and son dead near his dog kennel.

  Murdaugh has been in jail since October, unable to make bail on dozens of charges of financial and fraud crimes.

  His lawyers say he is innocent of the killings.

  Investigators are also now re-examining the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old man who was found dead along a road about 10 miles from the Murdaugh home, and the 2018 death of Gloria Satterfield, a housekeeper who died after falling on the front steps of the Murdaugh home.

Manchin Kills the Bill: Senator Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s Democrat who’s almost a Republican, has pulled out of negotiations to salvage key pieces of President Biden’s agenda, saying he will not support funding for climate or energy programs or raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

  Manchin drives a Maserati and has much of his fortune in the coal business.

  This puts a torpedo in the President’s and Democratic Party’s plans to enact a broad social safety net, climate, and tax package. The Democrats always knew Manchin would not support everything they wanted, but this is a blow.

The Obit Page: Ivana Trump, the Czech born first wife of former President Donald Trump, was found dead yesterday in her Manhattan home. She may have died as the result of a fall down stairs, but the cause has not been determined. Investigators say the death does not look suspicious. She was 73.

  Trump was the mother of Donald Trump’s three oldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric.

  Ivana and Donald were one of the glamor couples of New York in the late 70s and 1980s. They were all over the press, like the Kardashians today. But Ivana was more than a socialite. She was credited with helping to build the Trump real estate empire. She was deeply involved with developing Trump Tower in Manhattan and the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

  She added humor to the union. Ivana was the one who dubbed her husband, “The Donald.”

  The marriage broke up at least in part when Trump had an affair with the fetching blonde, Marla Maples, whom he later married. Ivanka later joked in a movie cameo, “Don’t get even, get everything.” She didn’t. She got about $14 million, a fraction of the Trump wealth.

The Spin Rack: Search and rescue crews have found all 44 Virginia residents who were missing after Wednesday’s floods wiped out homes, roads, and bridges. — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sudd the Biden administration over federal rules that require abortions be provided in order to save the life of the mother, even in states with near-total bans. “The Biden Administration seeks to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic,” Paxton said in a statement announcing the lawsuit on Thursday. — Lawyers for Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham are arguing that the South Carolina Republican cannot be forced to testify before a grand jury about possible election interference, claiming he has “absolute immunity” under the US Constitution for phone calls he placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

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