enroll by december 31st. lutions, this is abc 7 n>> answers live on abc seven. everyday we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real-time. today, would you want your struggling child to have three extra hours of a school day and 30 extra days? to the school year? would that help them make up for pandemic learning loss or close the achievement gap? we will talk with troy flynt from the california school board about a new program. elon musk asked twitter users if they went him to step down and they said a resounding yes.

we will check in with a writer of the tech friend newsletter at the washington post. the house select committee investigating the january 6 attack at the u.s. capitol held its final public meeting today. it released a 100 60 page final report to wrap up 17 months of work. it voted to approve criminal referrals for former president trump for his role in the attempted and ultimately failed overturn of the 2020 election. joining us alive now is bay area congresswoman jackie spear who has followed the proceedings closely. thank you for joining us. >> great to be with you. >> so now trump is the first ever president to be formally referred by congress for potential criminal prosecution. does a referral carry any legal weight? >> it does not but it does carry i think weight with the american public.

this was an 18 month exhaustive review of what happened on january 6. interviews with over 100 people. thousands of pages of documents all of which will be very valuable to the department of justice as evidence that they can rely on or expand on as they contemplate whether or not to bring actions against those who have been identified by the committee. that is exclusively within the role of the attorney general in terms of whether or not there air going to be indictments -- there are going to be indictments made. >> the committee voted to refer him on four criminal charges. obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the united states, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or assisting an insurrection. did you see convincing evidence of all four of those charges? >> for sure i would find the

number one count to be probably the most persuasive. the effort to obstruct an official proceeding was clear on the face of it. if you look at the totality of former president trump's conduct, i think the most troubling for donald trump is the fact that he stole classified documents and retained them at mar-a-lago and obstructed the efforts by the u.s. government to retrieve them. there are people who have gone to jail for that kind of conduct and certainly people have gone to jail for conduct much less dramatic than top-secret confidential that the former president had in his position. >> now the committee is turning over the testimony of those 1200 witnesses. do you think this could or should have been done earlier because the doj has been asking for the transcripts for eight

months. >> i cannot really speak to any negotiations that went on between the department of justice and the committee that there are separate entities. i think from the committee's standpoint, this was an oversight function. i did not win any of that information to leak before they completed their review and made the final report. the department of justice has powers that frankly the congress does not have in terms of calling on a grand jury, subpoenaing, having actions taken that really the committee was unable to do. when witnesses were called, when they were subpoenaed, they did not comply with the subpoenas. the question becomes whether or not there should be action taken against those individuals for not complying with the requests by the committee.

that would be the department of justice authority and review. >> the committee also recommended criminal charges for four republican lawmakers including kevin mccarthy who represents a swath of california near bakersfield to what is the process for them and what attentional consequences could they face? >> that is something that will be determined by the department of justice and i think that is probably less likely to occur. but there has also been an ethics complaint filed against four of those members of congress. that will have to be reviewed by the full ethics committee. that could result in central work, reprimand. -- in ce conduct by members of congress who swear under oath to uphold the constitution cannot be taken lightly. efforts to support the undermining of the election by

not taking action to make sure there was a peaceful transfer of power which was what was taking place on january 6 and for a member of congress to participate in that is i believe very troubling. >> just to remind our viewers that is the proceeding, this criminal referral saying that was obstructed, to count the votes and confirm the presidential election results and there was obstruction there appeared i went to go back to mccarthy because he could become the house speaker in a few weeks. how do you feel about that given what you know about his actions or inactions around january 6? >> what i do know about kevin mccarthy and i served with him in the state legislature as well -- he is deeply committed to becoming the speaker of the house. whatever promises he is making to some of the most extreme members of the party is going to be interesting to see play out. i don't actually know he has the

votes. he has such a slim margin that he cannot have less than -- he has only four votes to play with. i think he would be in very difficult position because so many members have already indicated they will not vote for him. five members have indicated they will not vote for him. it is going to be very interesting to see what happens on january 3. it will be high drama i can guarantee you. >> even if it is not him, if it is in republican control, could they stop the doj investigation or influence that or is it out of the house's hands? >> it is totally out of the house's hands. they have no ability except to terminate the january 6 committee which i am pretty confident they are going to do. but they are going to start up new select committees. one will certainly about hunter

biden. there will be more of that going on. you might recall for 18 months or longer or maybe closer to three years there were these exhaustive hearings and investigations into benghazi and to what extent hillary clinton was involved. kevin mccarthy at the time said that was relevant because it prevented her from becoming the president of the united states. so weaponizing these kinds of committees is truly a dangerous undertaking. what we saw here was an effort made to find out why this went on and participated and why a coup was seen to be something that was acceptable in democracy. >> trump has announced he is running for president again in 2024. do these criminal referrals impact his reelection campaign?

>> he will not be able to run for president if he is in fact charged and convicted. there is great interest in that. i would suggest the greatest strength in terms of a conviction would come from stealing the highly sensitive top-secret documents that really placed our country, our national security at great risk. >> that they ended up in mar-a-lago. you were at how speaker pelosi's official porch unveiling at the capital. you tweeted a picture of her and former speaker republican john boehner hugging. what thoughts and emotions did you experience in that moment? >> it was wonderful to see two former speakers who had great respect for each other. he told a really charming story about how when he exchanged the gavel with her he went in to give her a kiss and she kind of

recoiled a little bit to and said wait a minute i have to make sure she accepts the kiss. after he made those comments, the speaker got up and went over to him and kissed him. it was quite charming to see the two of them recognizing the importance of the office and respecting each other as well. >> i wonder if you feel like the style jack for a time gone by if you think that is possible again where you could be of deaf up -- be of different political ilk's but then go get drinks afterwards and hugged each other. is that still possible for america? >> i think if the american people demand it, they will get it. with the american people starting to demand republicans they discard donald trump as their leader because they are losing elections, then the elected officials will respond to the. there -- response of that.

there has to be an opportunity now to recognize the kind of rhetoric, the kind of toxic environment is unacceptable. you cannot have the speaker's spouse almost bludgeoned to death by someone who is radicalized only online and somehow feel that is ok. it is not ok. i would hope there would be efforts to police conduct by colleagues in congress who encourage that kind of activity. i actually brought the resolution against paul gosar when he had tweeted about putting alexandria ocasio-cortez in the crosshairs because that again is promoting violence. we cannot have that. >> congresswoman spear, i know you are retiring after 14 years in that role. this may be the last time we

chat as congresswoman but it certainly will not be the last time we chat so happy holidays. congratulations on your congressional career. thank you. >> thank you. happy holidays to you as well. >> after the break, helping struggling students catch up with their classmates but it will require extra hours and days of studying. we'll hear from a state school official at this

>> how would you like it if your child had an extra three hours of school and an extra 30 days to the school year? >> that is the state plan being implemented to help struggling

students make up for pandemic learning loss joining us to discuss this, the expanded learning opportunities program, chief informational officer with the california school board association. thank you for your time. >> thank you for having me. >> explain how the extra three hours in 30 days might be tacked on. >> that is going to vary according to the particular district, how they decide to implement. the basic logic hind the expanded learning opportunity program is there were pre-existing gaps that existed before the pandemic. the pandemic greatly exacerbated those student groups that suffered the most were high needs students. these funds would be deployed to help those students who are from low income families, who are english learners or who are foster or homeless youth. the directive is the money be spread out so there be multiple

sites accessible to students. so students from all different communities have a way to get access to these days whether that is a longer summer program or access to before and afterschool programs so there can be more opportunities for intensive learning to help recover some of the learning loss from the pandemic and also to address ongoing issues of subpar achievement. > it sounds like a lot is left up to the district should is k-12 eligible for these programs? >> if you include our new grade of transitional kindergarten which is a bridge between preschool and kindergarten. the program is designed to allow some flexibility. when you have districts like lausd which has over half a million students and then you have districts in rural parts of the state that have under 10 students you need to allow a little bit of flexibility for the program to be adapted to the constraints a district is working on and the needs of

their specific communities. fundamentally the underlying principle, the universal goal is to get students more learning time and to have them in situations which are high leverage learning opportunities. even beyond what they would normally experience and the classroom so districts a look at what is called high-dose tutoring. they may look at having lower class sizes. they may expand the length of the school day. make before and after school programs open to a wider variety of students. maybe lift some of the constraints. make them accessible to more students. you are going to see a variety of different approaches. >> would participation be voluntary for students and for the teacher staff? >> participation will be voluntary for students but there is a huge marketing and recruitment component that restricts need to do. the goal is 15% of the target groups, those are low income students, english language

learners and foster and homeless youth. at least 50% of those students be taking advantage of these opportunities and schools are required to communicate to every student that falls in those categories. that is something districts need to be aware of and families need to be aware of so they don't miss out on this opportunity. as far as staffing is concerned, that is going to depend on the district. they would have to be inducements in many cases because you have many teachers who are already stretched to the limit and may not want to take on additional responsibilities if it is outside the terms of their contract. that is something each district will have to take into account and work on with employees and representative groups. >> i wonder if there are thoughts or worries about diminishing returns for students in terms of they have spent this many hours at school already. any additional work whether it is tutoring or something else, maybe they are not able to process it at that point or perhaps maybe they don't need summer or tutoring.

maybe they just need to go out and play. is there debate about how to balance that? but fundamentally our kids are capable of more if we give them the proper support which is not something we have always done in this state. to the credit of the governor and legislature they did rise to the challenge of the last two years and provide substantial amounts of emergency funding but two years of crisis funding does not make up for 40 years of under and vestment in california schools. what we are seeing now with these expanded opportunity grants and supplement of funding is what should have been the standard for decades. we have a lot of ground to make up as we saw with the latest test scores in the and abp which is the standard for measuring student achievement. we saw the biggest drops we have ever seen in the history of tests in math and some of the biggest drops we have seen in the wind -- the english language arts. those drops were concentrated

more heavily among students already struggling and behind their peers. there is more the students are capable of. we have been failing them and we need to do more. it is a matter of structuring the learning opportunities so they are engaging. but also provide the enrichment the kids need. >> thank you so much. we should mention the state has already dedicated the billions of dollars necessary for this program so we will see how that shapes up in the next few years. thank you so much. after the break we are breaking down this poll from elon musk asking twitter users if he should step down. (grandma) [in navajo] where are they? it is cold outside. (vo) wells fargo has donated $50 million dollars in support of indigenous peoples... including funding solar furnaces that convert sunlight...

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>> twitter users have spoken and it seems they want elon musk gone as twitter's leader, ceo and seemingly sole arbiter of content. yesterday he tweeted one of the unscientific twitter paul's asking should i step down as head of twitter?

adding i will abide by the results of the pole. the poll is now closed. after 17 and a half-million votes, the results nearly 58% say yes he should step down. so what now? joining us to discuss this and other recent moves by elon musk, a writer of the tech friend newsletter at the washington post. thanks for joining us. >> happy to do it. >> at last check musk has not commented on the poll. what does smart money say? >> i would be rich if i could predict whether elon musk does what he says or what he tweets. i think a couple important to keep in mind. one thing is he has said before he will eventually step down as ceo of twitter did maybe no one thought it would at this moment but eventually. the other thing to consider is there has any concern from investors in one of his other companies, tesla, about how

involved he has been in twitter. they want him to spend more time at tesla. the timing of this unscientific poll may be a way for him to go back to spending most of his time at tesla and not on this chaos at twitter. >> tesla stock has certainly tumbled quite a bit. someone as smart as him did not ask this in poll without having planned for a yes step down and set up his successor already. my question is even if he was not ceo, as the twitter of -- the owner of the company, certainly everyone expects him to have an outside influence on every policy, right? >> i think that is an important point to make. matter who the titular boss is of twitter, musk is the owner and absolute dictator of what happens on the site. that will not change no matter who runs the company as the ceo.

>> he has come under a lot of criticism and now even some investigations by the e.u. for example after banning the accounts of many journalists. can you tell folks what happened there and whether there any links between those who are bent to see it he is doing there? >> yeah and i want to be explicit a couple of my colleagues were among the journalists who were suspended from twitter so you know a stake in this dogfight. i think what said is the journalists who were suspended from twitter violated a relatively new policy that musk put in place to ban sharing of real-time location information of anyone on twitter. this was generally linked to an account that tracks the location information of famous people's private jets including elon musk's.

i should say that twitter account tracks jet information poles location information from existing databases so this was already publicly available information and also it is not actual real time it is location of this private jet on a delay. but regardless that seemed to be the explanation musk gave or twitter officials gave for at least some of the journalists suspensions of twitter that they had violated this policy engaging in tweets relevant to private jet location data. >> many critics have looked at that to say are you for free speech or not for free speech? that information is not actually private. so not ducks and. there are a lot of -- there is a lot of criticism. we could talk about it for 30 minutes. what has been the option in terms of twitter's use and the other social media platforms coming up like post-or mastodon?

>> the thing we don't know is what impact all this chaos and attention on twitter is having on twitter's usage and financials. that is the important question that musk has to make this payoff i'm making twitter more profitable. have no idea on the outside if twitter is generating more or less revenue. more or fewer profits than he did when before he took over pick >> remains to be seen what happens to twitter. appreciate your insight here. you right the tech friend newsletter at the washington newsletter at the washington life is uncertain. it's okay to feel stressed, anxious, worried or frustrated. calhope can help access, calhope free and secure mental health resources today. call our warm line at 833-317-4673 or livechat at calhope.org

- life is uncertain. with calhope's free and secure mental health resources, it's easy to get the help you and your loved ones need when you need it the most. call our warm line at (833) 317-4673 or live chat at calhope.org today. >> thank you so much for joining

us on getting answers. we'll be here every weekday at 3:00 answering questions around the bay area. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. the january 6th committee recommending the justice department charge former president trump, referring several criminal charges to the doj. also breaking news from the supreme court involving title 42 and the southern border. and the major storm bearing down as millions travel for christmas. first tonight, the january 6th committee making history. recommending criminal charges for a former president, recommending he be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the united states, conspiracy to make a false statement, and inciting an insurrection. and for the first time, the committee showing one of trump's closest aides, hope hicks, and what she said about trump in the weeks leading up to january 6th. jonathan karl standing by tonight. the major storm n