The Daily Signal - Senate Passes Defense Bill With Key Omissions, Trump Faces More Charges, Secret Service Hides Cocaine Record | July 28

Starting point is 00:00:02 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, July 28th. Here are today's headlines. The Senate has passed a version of the annual military spending bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, also referred to as the NDAA. The vote in the Senate was largely bipartisan, with 86 senators voting for it and 11 against. The Senate's version of the NDAA leaves out two amendments that would prevent taxpayer money from going to abortion-related costs or transgender medical interventions. House Republicans' version of the NDAA included the amendments to prevent taxpayer money from going to abortion-related costs or those transgender interventions. New York Democrat and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says, House Republicans are pushing partisan legislation that has zero chance of passing.

Starting point is 00:01:13 According to the Wall Street Journal, the House and Senate bills do have some similarities. Both versions of the bill would authorize 886 billion in spending on national security, including a 5.2% pay raise for service members and the Defense Department's civilian workforce. and Greenlight $300 million in security assistance for Ukraine. But what happens now that the Senate has passed a military spending bill that would allow both funding again for the abortion-related costs and the transgender medical interventions? The Daily Signals, Tyler O'Neill, reports that the bill now moves into what is called

Starting point is 00:01:55 the reconciliation process, meaning that debates happen behind closed doors between members of the House and Senate. and Senate staff will seek to craft a version of the bill that both chambers are likely to pass. But finalizing a bill, but both Republicans and Democrats can agree on, is going to be very challenging and is likely going to take quite some time. Stay tuned. Former President Donald Trump allegedly tried to delete surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago that is part of the investigation into Trump's handling of classified documents. The accusations were added to the indictment against Trump involving his mishandling of classified documents. Reportedly, Trump told the property manager of Marilago that he wanted the security camera footage deleted.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Remember that the original indictment against Trump accused the former president of holding onto 31 classified documents. Now, three accusations have been added to the indictment, according to the New York Times. including attempting to alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence. Trump defended his actions during an interview on the John Frederick Show. Take a listen. She's on my tapes that we gave to them. And they basically then say, that's not enough. I don't think we would have had to give it.

Starting point is 00:03:20 I'm not sure that we would have even had to give it. These were security tapes. We handed them over to them. I doubt we would have, if we wanted to fight that, I doubt we would have had to give it. But regardless, we gave it. Now, I'm not sure they say, I'm not even sure what they're saying. They're trying to intimidate people so that people go out and make up lies about me. Remember that yesterday, Trump's lawyers met with Justice Department officials regarding a possible third indictment of the former president related to January 6th and the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Starting point is 00:03:55 In other news, the Daily Signal's Tyler O'Neill broke the news yesterday that the Secret Service has refused to turn over the list of individuals who may have accessed the area where cocaine was found at the White House. Remember that cocaine was found at the White House over July 4th weekend while the president and his family were at Camp David. The Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project filed public records requests to obtain the list of names, of who may have been able to access that area in the White House after the Secret Service closed the investigation earlier this month. The Secret Service say that that list of names does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act, and therefore they won't release it. Heritage Foundation Distinguished Fellow Steve Bradbury formally served as the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation and led the Office of Legal Counsel. in the Justice Department.

Starting point is 00:04:57 The Daily Signal asked him to explain why the records would not be subject to a public records request. Bradbury said there is a legal distinction between an agency record and a presidential record. According to Bradbury, the distinction usually turns on who generates the record and whose business the record reflects. He added that if it's an agency record, it's such. subject to FOIA. If it's a White House record, it's covered by the Presidential Records Act. Bradbury said the pertinent question should be whether the Secret Service created its own new record

Starting point is 00:05:39 using information from the White House visitor and staff logs. He explained that if the White House produced a list of all the people who visited, but the Secret Service took that information and created a new document on its system, which was its own list, of suspects that it generated, the new document should fall under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. The Oversight Project is planning to appeal the rejection, so stay tuned. And finally, on this Friday, the Senate leadership is in question. Republican leader Mitch McConnell froze for about 20 seconds during a press conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The incident has many Americans wondering if a change in Senate leadership might be

Starting point is 00:06:25 coming. McConnell is 81 and this year became the longest serving Senate leader in history. McConnell fell in March and got a concussion from that fall. He has reportedly fallen several times since then. McConnell has made no indication that he plans to step down from his leadership position, but if that were to happen, Senator John Thum of South Dakota would likely be the choice to take over. Thume currently serves in the number two position among Senate Republic. Well, with that, that's going to do it for today's edition of the Daily Signal Top News. Thanks for joining us on this Friday afternoon. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

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The Daily Signal - Senate Passes Defense Bill With Key Omissions, Trump Faces More Charges, Secret Service Hides Cocaine Record | July 28

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