January 6 Hearings (Still Photo Courtesy of PBS)

The Associated Press reports the House panel investigating the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol laid the blame firmly on Donald Trump Thursday night, saying the assault was hardly spontaneous but an “attempted coup” and a direct result of the defeated president’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.

With a never-before-seen 12-minute video of extremist groups leading the deadly siege and startling testimony from Trump’s most inner circle, the January 6th committee provided gripping detail in contending that Trump’s repeated lies about election fraud and his public effort to stop Joe Biden’s victory led to the attack and imperiled American democracy

The hearings may not change Americans’ views on the Capitol attack, but the panel’s investigation is intended to stand as its public record. Ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, and with Trump considering another White House run, the committee’s final report aims to account for the most violent attack on the Capitol since 1814, and to ensure such an attack never happens again.

Testimony showed Thursday how Trump desperately clung to his own false claims of election fraud, beckoning supporters to the Capitol on January 6 when Congress would certify the results, despite those around him insisting Biden had won the election.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr in videotaped testimony said: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen..”

In another videotaped interview, the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, testified to the committee that she respected Barr’s view that there was no election fraud.

Others showed leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys preparing to storm the Capitol to stand up for Trump. One rioter after another told the committee they came to the Capitol because Trump asked them to.

“President Trump summoned a violent mob,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s vice chair who took the lead for much of the hearing. “When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union — or worse, causes a constitutional crisis — we’re in a moment of maximum danger for our republic.”

There was an audible gasp in the hearing room when Cheney read an account that said when Trump was told the Capitol mob was chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged for refusing to block the election results. Trump responded that maybe they were right, that he “deserves it.”

At another point it was disclosed that Republican Representative Scott Perry, a leader of efforts to object to the election results, had sought a pardon from Trump, which would protect him from prosecution.

When asked about the White House lawyers threatening to resign over what was happening in the administration, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner scoffed they were “whining.”

Police officers who had fought off the mob consoled one another as they sat in the committee room reliving the violence they faced on January 6.

The riot left more than 100 police officers injured, many beaten and bloodied, as the crowd of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol. At least nine people who were there died during and after the rioting, including a woman who was shot and killed by police.

Biden, in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas, said many viewers were “going to be seeing for the first time a lot of the detail that occurred.”

Trump, unapologetic, dismissed the investigation anew — and even declared on social media that January 6 “represented the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tweeted: “All. Old. News.”

Emotions are still raw at the Capitol, and security was tight. Law enforcement officials are reporting a spike in violent threats against members of Congress.

Against this backdrop, the committee was speaking to a divided America. Most TV networks carried the hearing live, but Fox News Channel did not.

Among those testifying was documentary maker Nick Quested, who filmed the Proud Boys storming the Capitol — along with a pivotal meeting between the group’s then-chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, the night before in a nearby parking garage.

Court documents show that members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were discussing as early as November a need to fight to keep Trump in office. Leaders of both groups and some members have since been indicted on rare sedition charges over the military-style attack.

In the weeks ahead, the panel is expected to detail Trump’s public campaign to “Stop the Steal” and the private pressure he put on the Justice Department to reverse his election loss — despite dozens of failed court cases attesting there was no fraud on a scale that could have tipped the results in his favor.

The panel faced obstacles from its start. Republicans blocked the formation of an independent body that could have investigated the January 6 assault the way the 9/11 Commission probed the 2001 terror attack.

Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ushered the creation of the 1/6 panel through Congress and rejected Republican-appointed lawmakers who had voted on January 6 against certifying the election results, eventually naming seven Democrats and two Republicans.

The Justice Department has arrested and charged more than 800 people for the violence that day, the biggest dragnet in its history.

Tom Reed

Bipartisan talks to overhaul the Electoral Count Act are underway in Congress.

The Washington Post reports the efforts began after former president Donald Trump issued a statement saying vice president Mike Pence could have “overturned” the 2020 presidential election.

Congressman Tom Reed said reform of the law is necessary, “It is a law that was adopted 140 years plus, I believe, ago, that is full of ambiguity. It has not been updated given the new election cycles or processes that we utilize in America. And then obviously you saw the confusion that January 6th highlighted.”

The Electoral Count Act governs the congressional certification for the election of the president and vice president.

Reed said the act needs to be brought into the 21st Century, “And make it very clear as to what is the role of Congress in regards to the electoral count, and follow the Constitution, and make that sure our statutory language in Congress reflects that of the 21st Century. And makes it clear as to exactly who makes the decision of who’s going to be the next President of the United States.”

Trump’s claim that a vice president is empowered under the law to summarily reject states’ electoral votes is heavily disputed by legal scholars and officials from both parties.

Top Republicans said they remained open to the discussions. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters the law is “clearly flawed and needs to be updated,” while Minority Whip John Thune suggested Trump’s comments could actually help forge a deal.

Tom Reed

WASHINGTON – Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning, NY 23) joined several of his Republican colleagues and even some Democrats on Tuesday to introduce a concurrent resolution to “censure the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, for attempting to unlawfully overturn the 2020 Presidential election and for violating his oath of office on January 6th, 2021.”

The Censure measure is being presented as an alternative to House Democrats’ effort to impeach the president for a second time on a single charge of “incitement of insurrection.”

The dueling resolutions are being presented less than one week after President Trump encouraged a mob of loyalists to “Stop the Steal” and “fight like hell” against election results. Soon after his speech, the U.S. Capitol became the target of a deadly siege that left five people dead, including a Capitol Police Officer and four Trump supporters.

While the first impeachment of Trump in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, a small number of leaders and other lawmakers are breaking with the party to join Democrats. But a majority of the Party – including Reed – say they won’t vote to impeach.

“If our leaders make the wrong decision in how to hold him accountable, it could damage the integrity of our system of justice, further fan the flames of division, and disillusion millions of Americans ─ all while failing to accomplish anything,” Reed said in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Tuesday. “Given the tools that lie before Congress, it is clear that pursuing impeachment only days before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated is not the answer.”

Democrat and Republican Members of the U.S. Senate are convinced that the House’s impeachment efforts will almost certainly result in a second acquittal of President Trump, which even some Democrats say would even further divide and inflame tensions in our nation.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) stated, “…it is clear the 25th Amendment will not be invoked and that the Senate will not convict the president after impeachment. A censure resolution is the only way to send a bipartisan, bicameral message without delay to the country and the world that the United States is a nation of laws.”

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) also stated that the House’s current impeachment approach “is so ill-advised for Joe Biden to be coming in, trying to heal the country, trying to be the president of all the people when we are going to be so divided and fighting again.”

According to those who support censure, there are two constitutional purposes of impeachment: 1) removal from office, and 2) barring the future holding of office and the current approach being advanced by House leadership is certain to accomplish neither one of these. As a result, they are pushing instead for censure.

“[Censure] is an important step to hold the President accountable. Congress must make clear that it rejects extremism and condemns the President’s actions,” said Reed. “We will continue to push for Congressional leaders to work with us on investigating the events surrounding this dark period in our history and make sure it never happens again with the public’s trust in our democratic institutions restored.”

Meanwhile, the four-page impeachment resolution relies on Trump’s own incendiary rhetoric and the falsehoods he spread about Biden’s election victory, including organizing a White House rally on the same day Congress was to certify Biden’s election. Some of those who attended the rally also participated in the raid on the Capitol following Trump’s speech, and supporters of impeachment say the speech was intended to whip his supporters into a frenzy just as members of congress took up the certification issue.

The House tried first to push Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to intervene, passing a resolution Tuesday night calling on them to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump from office. But Pence made it clear he would not do so. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Pence said it was “time to unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden.”

The President, meanwhile, insisted on Tuesday that he believes he bears no responsibility for the insurrection carried out by his supporters and has yet to explicitly call on them to refrain from launching another assault on the Capitol.

Vice President Mike Pence, who serves as president pro tem of the U.S. Senate, and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

WASHINGTON – Congress has concluded its count of the electoral vote for the 2020 presidential election and has certified President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory.

The action occurred early Thursday morning and took place only after an historic day at the nation’s capitol in which a mob of individuals, identified as supporters of President Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday afternoon while congress was in session to disrupt certification proceedings that are part of the constitutional process for allowing a peaceful transfer of power at the White House.

Following Thursday’s morning certification by Congress, President Trump for the first time acknowledged his defeat in the November election and announced there would be an “orderly transition on January 20th.”

But Trump’s acknowledgement came only the certification vote was completed and also after he attended a rally near the Capitol, where he continued to urge supporters to fight the election results and encouraged them to march to the Capitol, using remarks that were peppered with incendiary language and rife with violent undertones.

Once the mob arrived at the Capitol, there wasn’t enough security on hand to keep the large group at bay and hundreds of people eventually rushed and entered the building and freely roamed the halls, ransacked offices, and took items and posed for pictures in the chambers of both the Senate and House of Representatives. Meanwhile, members of Congress, their staff, and media were ushered into a secure location in the basement of the Capitol out of fear for their safety.

During the chaos, one woman was shot and killed, and three others died due to what was described as medical emergencies. No elected representatives were reported to be injured.

After the mob was cleared from the building and the chaos was subdued, both chambers resumed proceedings early Wednesday night, and they continued until the business of the people was concluded early Thursday morning.

Sen. Chuck Schumer

Sen. Charles Schumer, who represents New York in the Senate and who is the current minority leader of the Democratic Party, spoke events that occured earlier in the day.

“I have never lived through or even imagined an experience like the one we have just witnessed in this Capitol,” Schumer said. “President Franklin Roosevelt set aside Dec. 7, 1941, as a day that will live in infamy. Unfortunately, we can now add Jan. 6, 2021, to that very short list of dates in American history that will live forever in infamy.”

Schumer also pulled no punches in blaming President Trump for the chaos.

“This will be a stain on our country not so easily washed away – the final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th president of the United States, undoubtedly our worst… Make no mistake, today’s events did not happen spontaneously. The president, who promoted conspiracy theories and motivated these thugs, the president who exhorted them to come to our nation’s capital, egged them on – he hardly ever discourages violence and more often encourages it – this president bears a great deal of the blame. This mob was in good part President Trump’s doing, incited by his words, his lies. This violence, in good part his responsibility, his ever-lasting shame. Today’s events certainly — certainly — would not have happened without him.”

Schumer also said that those who participated in storming the Capitol should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“I want to be very clear: Those who performed these reprehensible acts cannot be called protesters – no, these were rioters and insurrectionists, goons and thugs, domestic terrorists. They do not represent America. They were a few thousand violent extremists who tried to take over the Capitol building and attack our democracy. They must and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law – hopefully by this administration, if not certainly by the next. They should be provided no leniency,” Schumer said.

Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Chautauqua County’s representative in Washington – Republican Congressman Tom Reed – also spoke out against the storming of the Capitol.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

“I come to this side of the aisle as a proud Republican, but most importantly, as a proud American,” Reed said as he moved from the Republican side of the House chamber to the Democratic side. “Today we saw an assault on our democracy. I love this institution. I love the United States Congress. And I love the United States of America. And what I saw today was mob rule that spat upon the blood of my father that is in the soil of Europe and in the soil of Korea. And who gave us that blood this sacred constitution and this sacred ability to lead this world as a power that says, we settle our differences not with mob rule, we settle our differences through elections. And when those elections are over, we have a peaceful transition of power.

Meanwhile, Trumps’ acknowledgement of losing the election also included a statement that may lead to additional unrest in the future, saying, “While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.”

Trump’s statement was posted to Twitter by his social media director. His own account had been locked by the company for posting messages that appeared to justify the assault on the seat of the nation’s democracy. His Facebook and Instagram accounts were also locked from being used.

Trump’s response to the violence underscored his months-long obsession with trying to overturn the results of the election.

He has spent the final days of his presidency angrily stewing and lashing out at Republicans for perceived disloyalty while refusing to acknowledge his loss or concede.

The violence, coupled with the president’s tepid response, alarmed many in the White House and appeared to push Republicans allies to the breaking point after years of allegiance to Trump. According to the Associated Press, a number of White House aides were discussing a potential mass resignation, according to people familiar with the conversation. And others quickly departed. More departures were expected in the coming days, although other aides indicated they planned to stay to help smooth the transition to the Biden administration. And some harbored concerns about what Trump might do in his final two weeks in office if they were not there to serve as guardrails when so few remain.

Trump has been single-mindedly focused on his electoral defeat since Election Day, aides said, at the expense of the other responsibilities of his office, including the fight against the raging coronavirus. Indeed, it was Vice President Mike Pence, not Trump, who spoke with the acting defense secretary to discuss mobilizing the D.C National Guard on Wednesday afternoon.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Jan. 1

NEW YORK – Gov. Andrew Cuomo was sworn in for his 3rd term as Governor Tuesday, using it as an opportunity to attack several of President Donald Trump’s policies and pledging New York will lead the nation forward with the most progressive agenda in state history.

The Democrat began 2019 and his third term with the inaugural address on Ellis Island, saying “America’s only threat is from within.”

“As our nation once confronted a great economic depression, we now confront a great social depression,” the governor said. “People’s frustration is turning to fear and the fear is turning to anger and the anger is turning to division. It is impossible to overstate how dangerous, how malignant this condition is. It is like a cancer that is spreading throughout our society, a disease that causes one cell in the body politic to attack other cells, to turn one against one another.”

The governor also said he doesn’t blame the leaders of the federal government for the fear that his gripped the nation, but he does blame them failing to properly address it.

“Like looters during a blackout, they didn’t cause the darkness, but they exploited it. People’s fear and frustration is caused by real problems in their lives and there are two options for government leaders to take. The hard, but true path is to confront and actually solve the problem. The easy, but false path is to use the anger to blame someone else, and the easiest target to blame is always the people who are different.”

Cuomo said that within the first 100 days of his new term, he will propose “the most progressive agenda this state has ever seen, period.”

“From voting reforms, to Roe v. Wade for New York, to protecting a woman’s right to choose,” said Cuomo. “To better gun laws, to healthcare protection, to legalizing marijuana, to protecting the labor movement, to a green new deal, to real criminal justice reform – we will make history and New York will move forward. Not by building a wall, my friends, but by building new bridges, and building new airports, and creating new middle class jobs and an economic future for the next generation and showing us how good we can be at our best when we are together.”

Cuomo also made it clear that he chose to deliver the nearly 30-minute speech from a famous landmark linked to immigration that remains open, along with the nearby Statue of Liberty, despite a partial federal government shutdown because of money supplied by the state.

And the governor highlighted the immigrant roots of many prominent Americans, including Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

With the battle over immigration policy raging nationwide, the speech’s location is likely to encourage speculation that Cuomo may run for president, though the 61-year-old has said he has ruled out the idea.

Donald Trump

JAMESTOWN – Donald Trump on Wednesday held a news conference in Miami and said he’d like to see Moscow find the thousands of emails Hillary Clinton deleted from the account she used as Secretary of State. Trump made the statements even after scheduling a news conference in order to dismiss suggestions from Democrats that Moscow already was intervening on his behalf.

“Russia, if you’re listening,I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing; I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments fed Democrats’ contentions that the billionaire businessman is unqualified to be commander in chief. He has no national security experience and has breezily dismissed decades of U.S. foreign policy constants, like standing by NATO allies that long suffered under Russian domination. And both Democrats and Republicans have voiced concern over what appears to be a candidate for president encouraging Russia to meddle in the political campaign for the highest office in the country.

Trump’s Republican running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, warned of “serious consequences” if Russia interfered in the election. Meanwhile the Clinton campaign called Trump’s statement the “first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against a political opponent.

Trump, however, tried to turn the table on Clinton, saying he believed it unsafe for her to receive national security briefings in light of her well-known email missteps while in office.

John Plumb

Locally, congressional candidate John Plumb (D-Lakewood) took note of Trump’s comments, with the John Plumb  for Congress campaign sending out an email Wednesday afternoon with their candidate criticizing Trump for his comments.

“I can’t believe what I’m reading. Today, Donald Trump publicly invited Russia to hack our government’s emails in order to attack Hillary Clinton,” Plumb said in the email. “I’ve spent my career defending our country from attacks. I never imagined we would see a presidential candidate openly asking for one… If you want to be Commander in Chief, you don’t go around inviting foreign spies to hack or attack our government. That’s not how you keep our citizens or our armed forces safe.”

Plumb also used Trump’s latest comments to attack his opponent, Congressman Tom Reed (R-Corning), who was one of the first members of congress to come out and support Trump during the GOP primaries.

“This is the dangerous man my opponent, GOP Congressman Tom Reed, has thrown his support behind… his blind support of Donald Trump is putting our security at risk,” Plumb said.

While many have come out and criticized Trump for the statement, at least one writer – Jake Novak with CNBC – says the comments by Trump were a calculated effort at misdirection, intended to take the focus off the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and put the spotlight back on the email controversy that’s dogged Clinton for the past several months.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)

CLEVELAND – As the GOP Convention comes to a close, Chautauqua County’s representative in Washington is calling for unity to elect Donald Trump.

During a conference call with reporters on Thursday morning, Republican Tom Reed of Corning – who attended his first national convention since being elected to office in 2010 – explained why he’s calling for unity to elect Donald Trump and Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence.

“Our families deserve a president and vice president who cares about our needs,” said Tom Reed.

“I am dedicated to our families and making sure they are treated fairly. With these proven leaders in the White House we will succeed. We will create jobs, address poverty, and keep our nation safe,” Reed added.

Meanwhile Reed’s opponent in the upcoming November Election is criticizing him for attending the RNC.

Democrat John Plumb of Jamestown released a statement on Thursday saying that Reed’s attendance at the RNC is another sign that he is more focused on serving the special interests in Washington, rather than representing families in the 23rd congressional district.

John Plumb

“It comes as no surprise that Congressman Reed has chosen to spend the week in Cleveland rubbing elbows with the special interests he does so much for instead of answering to the families here at home that he’s left behind,” Plumb said.  “Congressman Tom Reed spends his time in Washington helping to create a rigged system that allows politicians like himself, millionaires, and special interests play by a different set of rules – all at the expense of families here in Western New York and the Southern Tier. As one example, he’s voted to crush working families with a $2,000 income tax increase all so millionaires could get special tax breaks.”

Plumb was referring to Reed’s 2014 vote on the federal budget which, as the New York Times wrote, “lowers the top tax rate to 25 percent for the wealthiest taxpayers, down from the current 39.6 percent, while raising taxes on middle-class families with children by an average of $2,000.”

Plumb also said that next week he plans to stay in the district and campaign instead of attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.