Congressman Tom Reed announced last year that he would not be running for re-election because of a sexual assault allegation made against him. (See this story from last year for more information about the alleged sexual assault.) But we just received a surprise when Reed unexpectedly resigned early on May 10. We are now without a Congressman to represent our district.
Congressman Tom Reed posted the following statement on his official government Facebook page on October 23.
STATEMENT: Today, my family and I were threatened at our home in Corning.
The cowards used a dead animal and a brick with a family member’s name on it to try to intimidate us. We assure everyone such threats only energize us to stand stronger.
We thank the local police and federal authorities, who are already investigating this disgusting attack against my family.
Across the country, politics has taken a disturbing turn.
We have to overcome this. I know that we can. We are all Americans first. What unites us is far greater than our political differences
Congressman Tom Reed, like nearly all Republicans, used to distrust Russia and Vladimir Putin. He slammed his opponent, John Plumb, and President Obama during the 2016 election campaign for being soft on Russia. I managed to get snapshots of five of his Facebook posts before they disappeared.
Matt Gaetz and over 30 House Republican Representatives stormed the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where the House was gathering evidence for its impeachment hearings, cell phones in hand, and delayed Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper's testimony by five hours in order to protest what they claimed was an unfair process that lacked transparency. They did not like that the testimony was happening behind closed doors where no one could see it. They also objected to Trump not being allowed to have a lawyer present during the testimony to cross examine the witnesses and represent Trump's interests. FOX News quoted the leaders explaining why they protested.
“We’re going to try and go in there, and we’re going to try to figure out what’s going on, on behalf of the millions of Americans that we represent that want to see this Congress working for them and not obsess with attacking a president who we believe has not done anything to deserve impeachment,” Gaetz said.
The Republicans specifically called out Schiff, D-Calif., who is leading the investigation.
“What is Adam Schiff trying to hide?” asked House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. “I think that’s the question so many people have, so many of my colleagues have, so many people in the press should have.”
“Voting members of Congress are being denied access from being able to see what’s happening behind these closed doors where they’re trying to impeach the president of the United States with a one-sided set of rules,” Scalise continued. “They call the witnesses. They don’t let anybody else call the witnesses.”
Tom Reed's campaign and his supporters are making a big stink about some very ill-considered remarks posted by one of Tracy Mitrano's staffers on her Instagram account. Reed has posted this photo from the Instagram post, along with the caption "WARNING: Explicit Language – Extreme Ithaca Liberal Post" on his Extreme Ithaca Liberal site.
Matthew McGowen’s October 9 article in the Cornell Daily Sun about Congressman Tom Reed’s visit to campus emphasized Republican students’ fears about being subjected to social backlash if they wore their MAGA hats on campus. Senator Rand Paul recently said that political divisiveness will lead to “an assassination” and that “someone is going to be killed and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation ... they have to realize that they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence.” Tom Reed’s website claims that his staff members have been threatened by his opponent, Tracy Mitrano’s, supporters and blamed Representative Maxine Waters for encouraging harassment of public servants. And Republicans are quick to point out the attempted assassination of GOP Representative Steve Scalise in June 2016.
It is time to put Republican claims of perpetual victimhood in context.
Tom Reed devoted a page of his website to claims that his campaign staff was
threatened, harassed and insulted following this weekend’s Tracy Mitrano Rally in Olean which was hosted by a coalition of liberal activist groups including Citizens for a Better Southern Tier, the group whose leader was recently arrested for stealing Tom Reed campaign signs.
Reed tried to tie the harassment to Congresswoman Maxine Waters who he claimed encouraged harassment of "public servants" by telling a crowd of her supporters
Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from [President Trump’s] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.
Reed neglected to mention that Waters clarified her comments the next day when she told Chris Hayes,
I did not call for harm for anybody . . .As a matter of fact I believe in peaceful protest. . . . I believe that protest is at the centerpiece of our democracy. I believe that the constitution guarantees us freedom of speech. And I think that protest is civil.
It appears that Max Della Pia--or his intern--plagiarized sizeable sections of John Ossoff's website when writing his own website. For those outside the NY-23rd Congressional District--Max barely eked out a victory among five competitors in the Democratic primary vying for a chance to send our Congressman, Tom Reed, to the unemployment line.
Congressman Tom Reed posted his thoughts on the North Korea Summit recently on Facebook. The last line of his post justifiably raised some eyebrows.
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Read this article about Cattaraugus County Democratic Committee Chairman Frank Puglisi and his attack on Tracy Mitrano, one of five candidates running in the Democratic primary for a chance to replace Tom Reed in the NY 23rd district.
