By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy was not surprised at President Donald Trump’s pardon of more than 1,500 rioters convicted in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capital.
“I support the President’s prerogative to pardon who he chooses,” Langworthy, R-Pendelton, told the Olean Star Thursday. “The whole episode was mishandled and abuse in the courts.”
Langworthy went on to say that there were “people were denied due process. There were a lot of lies and coverups.”
The congressman went on to say that the J-6 Committee “destroyed information” and “the president just wanted to put the pardons behind him. It’s important not to re-litigate this.”
Langworthy, a former Erie County and New York State Republican chairman, also questioned President Joe Biden’s pardons for his family members in the last days of his administration.
“The entire episode is a dark day for our county,” Langworthy said. “We have to make sure it never happens again.”
Langworthy had not yet been elected when the rioters broke into the capital and brutally beat police officers charged with protecting Congress.
Like other members of Congress, Langworthy sat in the Capital Rotunda for Trump’s inauguration, the same place rioters gathered as they roamed through the building after violently breaking in in a bid to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Cold temperatures in the nation’s capitol caused Trump to move the inaugural indoors — something that has not been done since President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985.
Langworthy said the world has already seen the impact of Trump — even before he took power an noon on Monday — and cited the Gaza ceasefire as an example. The Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was formally announced last weekend.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was involved in the final round of negotiations based on a proposal made eight month ago by Biden.
What was Langworthy’s main takeaway from Trump’s inaugural speech?
The congressman said Trump generally recounted the policies he spoke about on the campaign trail and the executive orders he has already begun to carry out to begin to usher in America’s golden age.
Greater U.S. energy production is a big part of Trump’s plans to start lowering inflation and bringing down household costs, Langworthy said.
Since “the day Covid struck us to today, there has been far too much sadness, uncertainty and heartbreak, and now we need to enter a period of peace and prosperity and (energy) production and creating a greater future for our kids,” Langworthy said.
The Republican congressman said, “I think we’re going to get a little more bipartisanship than people might think because the immigration crisis has been tackled.”
Now that the Southern border has been sealed, the next step is to proceed with the arrest of “criminal elements that have come here illegally, that have committed crimes either while they are here or wanted for crimes in other countries,” Langworthy said. They will be deported.
Langworthy also said he agreed with Trump’s executive order that overturns the 14th Amendment on birthright citizenship.
A federal judge in Seattle placed a temporary restraining order prohibiting the president’s order from being implemented. The new administration will appeal the restraining order all the way to the Supreme Court, Langworthy said.
“With the 14th amendment, our founders certainly weren’t thinking about people from Uzbekistan coming over here in the eighth month of a pregnancy,” Langworthy said. At many Texas border towns, “there is just a huge epidemic of late term pregnancy at the border. People are crossing when they shouldn’t probably even be out of bed, just so they can have their babies in the United States.”
But, Langworthy added, “People coming here just to have a baby, that should not be a legal right… We’ve had a lot of people come here and have children here in order to stay here. And that flies in the face of the rest of our laws.”
Langworthy said the legislative means of amending the Constitution “is a very complicated process, but the conversation needs to be held.”
Langworthy, of Niagara County, represents the Southern Tier and most of Erie County outside Buffalo.
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All Rights Reserved. Star News LLC. Eric M. Firkel.
