Also on today’s menu:
SINO McCarthy Credits Trump For Role
Lost Among The Branches
AG’s Office Identifies Police In Fatal Gilford Shooting
President Joe Biden Jr. had called Donald Trump’s decision to keep classified documents at his private club in Florida “irresponsible.” Now we find out that what Biden’s special counsel, Richard Sauber, has called “a small number of documents with classified markings” had been discovered while the president’s personal attorneys were clearing out his offices at the Penn Biden Center. The president maintained an office there as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2019.
The National Archives and Records Administration has taken possession of the documents, which were found on November 2, 2022, in a locked closet, but were not publicly disclosed until January 9. Like those found at Mar-a-Lago, the classified materials from the years when Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice-president included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” or SCI designation, indicating highly sensitive information from intelligence sources. Federal office-holders are required by law to relinquish official documents and classified records when their government service ends.
Sauber said, “Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
Suggesting that Biden should have known better, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy commented, “President Trump had never been in office before and had just left, came out. Here’s an individual spent his last 40 years in office.”
SINO McCarthy Credits Trump For Role
Kevin McCarthy finally secured what columnist Steve Schmidt has termed Speaker in Name Only (SINO) — a play, of course, on “Republican in Name Only” (RINO), the term ultra-conservative members of the party use to demean the more moderate members of their own party. Schmidt said McCarthy “occupies the Speaker’s office at Trump’s whim and, incredibly, seems immune to being cognizant of his humiliation and debasements. He is the leader of nothing.”
Speaking to reporters after the 15th vote that finally confirmed him as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, McCarthy made a point of giving credit to Donald J. Trump: “But I do want to especially thank President Trump,” McCarthy said. “I don't think you should, anybody should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning. ... He would call me and he would call on us. And he really was — I was just talking to him tonight — helping get those final votes. What he’s really saying, really for the party and the country, that we have to come together. We have to focus on the economy. We got to focus, make our border secure. We got to do so much work to do and he was a great influence to make that all happen. So thank you, President Trump.”
By “coming together,” McCarthy did not mean bringing Americans together; he meant uniting the members of his party. He probably could have won the speakership by reaching across the aisle and making a few concessions to the Democrats, emerging as a stronger speaker. Instead, he gave away virtually all of his power to meet the demands of the ultra-conservative members of his own party. Now all it takes is one representative to call for a vote to remove him from the position.
The Democrats rallied behind Hakeem Jeffries, who left McCarthy stunned (watch the video) when he delivered what has been dubbed his “alphabet speech” — going through every letter of the alphabet: “House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, freedom over fascism, governing over gaslighting, hopefulness over hatred, inclusion over isolation, justice over judicial overreach, knowledge over kangaroo courts, liberty over limitation, maturity over Mar-a-Lago, normalcy over negativity, opportunity over obstruction, people over politics, quality of life issues over QAnon, reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression, working families over the well-connected, xenial over xenophobia, ‘yes, we can,’ over ‘you can’t do it,’ and zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation.”
Lost Among The Branches
Conservation officers with New Hampshire Fish and Game were able to find and rescue a 54-year-old Salisbury woman who lost her way while gathering pieces of wood and pine branches for home decoration on January 6.
Monique Olson’s husband notified Fish and Game at 5:05 p.m. that she had not returned to the car after about an hour, and he had been unable to find her. He said he had waited in his car after dropping her off along Warner Road at 3:50 p.m. When she had not returned by dusk, and he was unable to follow her trail, he called for assistance.
Conservation Officers were able to follow Olson’s tracks for about a mile, finding her cold and wet, but uninjured. She said that, without a light source, she could not find her back to the road. She was reunited with her husband at Warner Road around 6:30 p.m.
AG’s Office Identifies Police In Fatal Gilford Shooting
The Attorney-General’s Office has identified the two police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Gilford teenager Mischa Fay on New Year’s Day as Sergeant Douglas Wall and Officer Nathan Ayotte.
Director of Communications Michael Garrity said it was Wall who discharged the fatal bullet. Ayotte had deployed a Taser.
The investigation into whether lethal force had been justified in responding to the report of a man with knife is continuing.
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