Republican Talk-Show Host Calls for Investigation of Cynthia Coffman
UPDATE: In response to the request of a commentator on ColoradoPols, I asked Crank if he still holds the opinion below, which he expressed over two weeks ago. Here’s his response.
CRANK: Yes, I still believe that Cynthia Coffman should welcome an investigation by an independent authority. I don’t know if what she did rises to the legal definition of blackmail or extortion. Only a legal expert would know that. There should be an investigation and, if she is cleared, she should apologize for using bad judgement. If the investigation finds that she participated in an effort to extort or blackmail, she should resign.
I try to hold the same standard regardless of party. That is more than those on the left usually do.
Amazes me that the folks on the left who are calling for Coffman to resign were eerily quiet about Eric Holder’s gun running operation and the IRS targeting people based on their political views. Perhaps you should write about that too, unless that just cuts too close to home.
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Some of my friends might throw stones at me, but, love him or hate him, Colorado Springs radio-host Jeff Crank tries to hold the Republican Party to basic standards.
When Crank, a Republican, ran for Congress back in 2006, Crank was the victim of GOP shenanigans himself, so he seems to really hate it when the Republican knives come out behind the scenes.
Shortly after the news broke that Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and others had allegedly threatened House in an effort to push him out of his position as state GOP chair, Crank took to the airwaves with this:
CRANK: “Now, to me, if that happened, that’s blackmail,” said Crank, who’s worked over the years for Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, during his June 20 KVOR show. “Could it be extortion? I don’t know what the law says about the threshold for extortion or blackmail, but I’m pretty sure that the Attorney General shouldn’t participate in it. I’m pretty sure of that. In fact, I’m pretty sure that an Attorney General would want to prosecute rather than participate in an effort to blackmail the chairman of the Republican Party.
Now, I just say this. If this happened, Cynthia Coffman, the Attorney General, needs to resign. She’s a Republican, and she needs to resign. Because if this happened, she either at worst, participated in it, and at best, was a witness to it, in her office – in your office, in the Attorney General’s office of the state of Colorado. It’s uh — this is what needs to be investigated. Not whether Steve House did this, that, or the other thing. What is really troubling here to me is that the Attorney General of the state of Colorado, who already played politics once and took the opposite side of her husband in supporting someone for Party Chairman, now shows up and decides that that’s, all of a sudden, — he needs to go because maybe he hasn’t hired somebody. But participates in a meeting like this – was either a witness to, or participated in blackmail. There you go.
Who in the world do people think they are, walking into the Chairman. The Chairman was duly elected as the Chairman of the Republican Party. He can hire or not hire whoever he choses as his Exectuvie Director. Tom Tancredo, who again, has been a friend of mine, supported me when I ran for Congress when he was a member of Congress. I appreciate his support. Tom, of all people, was the guy that everybody in the Tea Party hated because he ran against Dan Maes, left the Republican Party, ran as an Independent, and now he’s trying to tell the Chairman of the Party who he has to hire as the Executive Director. And it’s all unseemly.
But here is the biggest problem I have with this: Cynthia Coffman is the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Colorado. And it’s lonely when you’re a Republican calling out another Republican. And I’m sad to say that. […] But I will say this: I have built a career doing that, and I will call you out if I think you’ve done something unethical, if you’ve done something wrong. And I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. And I think that’s what people respect about the positions that I take—is that I take them and I hold firm to them. And I’ve got to tell you, I need to know more about what Cynthia Coffman’s role was here. If she participated in or saw an attempt to blackmail the Chairman of the Republican Party, she needs to resign. Because if that’s the case, if that happened, she is Eric Holder of the state of Colorado. And I can’t think of anything worse to say about somebody than being the Eric Holder of the state of Colorado. She can’t just sit silently. There has to be an investigation. There should be an ethics complaint filed.
Barring a sentence or two, Crank actually sounds like a real attorney general here, unlike the one we have now.