Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Wake Up! with Randy Corporon

Guests:    Buck, Ken

Link:        https://omny.fm/shows/wake-up-with-randy-corporon/rc-12072019-hour-3

Date:       December 7, 2019

Topics:     Impeachment Scam, Matt Gaetz, Bias, Law Professors, Professor Turley, Impeachable offense, Fiona Hill, Military Aid, Judiciary Committee, Bribery, High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Abuse of Power Standard, Russians Influence Election, Cory Gardner’s Christmas Party, Devon Nunez, Whistleblower, Reelection, Nancy Pelosi, Fundraising, Chief Justice Roberts, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Senate Hearing, Mitch McConnell, Wrap Up Smear.

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CORPORON [00:00:28] But right now, we’ve got a good friend of mine, somebody that I have known way back when he was just the district attorney. And I say just it’s hit district attorneys very important. But I only knew him as a district attorney because occasionally our Denver law firm would have cases in Weld County and we’d have to deal with him and his very effective and successful prosecution teams. And I came to like him. I came to respect him. And nothing has changed that. He joins us now. Congressman and Court of State GOP chairman Ken Buck. Good morning, sir. Good morning. All right. Always seems like I’m always late with you. I’m sorry for that. I know you’re just flying like crazy. Got a lot of plates in the air and just I haven’t even talked about the impeachment scam today. But just as a quick reminder for folks, I thought Matt Gaetz really hit it out of the park near the end of the line of the Nadler Horror Show earlier this week.

BUCK [00:01:27] I thought he did well also. Matt made a point of talking about the bias of the three witnesses that appeared. It was interesting because all four witnesses, all four law professors that appeared were Democrats. All four voted for Obama. All four voted for Hillary Clinton. There just was one of those four Democrats believes that the standard that the Democrat majority in the House is using is so low that it really threatens our our republic. And I give it I give Professor Turley credit for that.

CORPORON [00:02:07] Yeah. He’s taken a lot of flak. He’s written about calls for his job, threats on his person and his family, his livelihood, et cetera. Let’s give folks just a few seconds of Matt Gates.

BUCK [00:02:18] So let’s see if we can get into the facts to all of the witnesses. If you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the Schiff report, please raise your hand. No hands went up and let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact. And you know what? That continues on the tradition that we saw from Adam Schiff, where Ambassador Taylor could not identify an impeachable offense. Mr. Catch never met with the president. Fiona Hill never heard the president reference anything regarding military aid. Mr. Hale was unaware of any nefarious activity with aid.

CORPORON [00:02:52] And he went on and on. And you took kind of a different tack. I thought it was fascinating. I was watching the hearings. And you explain to people, because so many people aren’t paying attention to this, ratings are down. CNN lowest ratings in three years. People are getting ready for the holidays. They don’t they’re not. Support for impeaching this president continues to plummet. But you decided to approach this from a different angle.

BUCK [00:03:19] How did you handle your opportunity to question these four law professors who went down to committee prepared to talk about the crime of bribery? And the crime of bribery means that that both parties need to have a complete understanding that there will be an exchange of value in exchange of money or some valuable item for a favor. And so they’re suggesting that President Trump was, you know, soliciting this bribe. He would give foreign aid, but he wanted information in return. The problem with bribery is that the recipient of the bribe has to have a full understanding that a bribe is occurring. And that’s not what the president has said. So I went down with one idea. And then as I listened to the testimony, everybody kept talking about this abuse of power standard. The founders had a long debate about impeachment and they decided that it was that they should have it. And then the question was, what was the standard? The first proposal was maladministration. And then they went to incompetence and they all decided, no, it has to be something much greater than that. And so they raised the bar to high crimes or misdemeanors, as you know, treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors. And when I heard this abuse of power, it is such a low bar that we could have impeached many, many presidents in the past and several in the future will undoubtedly be subject to that abuse, that that standard. And so I just felt that they were really putting our republic at risk if we lower the bar to that extent.

CORPORON [00:04:55] And so you set out examples of decisions — leverage points —  that different presidents had used in history and asked if that would would qualify as an abuse of power. And of course you’ve got –not anyone tried to allege that that was. You didn’t bring up the fact that candidate Ted Kennedy, when he was running to try and unseat Ronald Reagan, reached out — and all the records have been released — he reached out and tried to coordinate with Russia, saying, “We’ve got to stop this guy. There’s gonna be war!” And trying to get the help of the Russians to influence the American election. And it’s interesting, Ken, I was that Cory Gardner’s Christmas party last night, the first time in many years that I’ve been invited. But the people that were there were fascinating. And I had folks come up to me and say, “Well, I didn’t quite understand what Ken was doing.”  But my mother, 88 years old, who is always my arbiter of common sense and doing the right thing, she loved what you did because, you know, everybody was pounding on kind of the obvious — important and necessary — but obvious points. And you brought out a whole entirely different perspective for people to be thinking about. And I don’t think any of the professors really knew how to handle it. Turley certainly acknowledged that none of those other uses of leverage in conversation or whatever would have been or should have been impeachable offenses.

BUCK [00:06:26] Well, not only that, but Turley said he couldn’t think of any president in the United States history that couldn’t have been impeached.

CORPORON [00:06:34] –Under this new standard.

BUCK [00:06:34] And that’s exactly what the founders were trying to avoid.

CORPORON [00:06:34] Yeah!  Right.

BUCK [00:06:34] And then Karlin, the professor, the lady from Stanford, she started getting into it, “Well, of course they should have been impeached that they did those things.” Well, my goodness! That just completely undermines the continuity that we need in leadership in this country.

CORPORON [00:06:57] Absolutely. So, we know we’ve got a little bit more of the Nadler Show. The letter from the White House said, you know, “We’re not going to participate. Please vote quickly because we want our day in court in a fair process where we present the witnesses we choose and have the opportunity to defend ourselves, not in these strict limits of certain witnesses that can and can’t be called, who can be present, you can’t see certain transcript, even though you’re a congressman and have clearances, and the whole nine yards. The White House, wisely, in my mind, is not going to participate next week. But you are on the Judiciary Committee. What do you expect to happen on Monday? Interesting timing, by the way, that they decided to schedule this the same day [as] the release of the Horowitz IG report.

BUCK [00:07:46] Yeah, so on Monday, we will have two witnesses, the counsel for the Democrats and the counsel for the Republicans. Mr. Goldman and Mr. Castor will will be present and testify. Typically, it is the chairman of the committee that is presenting the report to the Judiciary Committee and the ranking member of the committee. So it would be Adam Schiff and Devon Nunez. And Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler have changed the rules so that Adam Schiff does not have to appear. He would obviously be under oath and he would be answering questions about the whistleblower and other things. And so we will have a full day of hearings where we will be questioning staff.

BUCK [00:08:32] Unbelievable. In fact, staff will be questioning staff about the report and then members will get a chance to question. And so — and I have to tell you, there are there are some staff members who walk around that Capitol Hill and think they have put their name on a ballot and have been elected and they haven’t. And I think you’re going to see some of that arrogance coming out on Monday.

CORPORON [00:08:59] Well, I don’t know how we could get any more arrogance than than was already dished out. The law professors — and you’ve got to give Turley credit: not a Trump supporter or voter, certainly not a conservative, believes, I think, a great deal in leftist social policies. But his focus is his expertise, which is the constitution. And he’s now put his career and his reputation among, you know, the silver spoon crowd and his family at risk for standing up and telling the truth. I can’t imagine anybody other than, you know, geeky people like me will be watching what’s going on or at least keeping tabs on it next week. People are heading into Congress. We see the unbelievable fundraising that the Republicans and the president and others are doing on this. We see what’s happening in polls. We see Democrats who are very concerned about this impact on their reelection next year, especially Democrats in districts that voted for Trump back in 2016. Is there anything — you know things that none of us know because of where you are and what you do — is there anything that’s coming up that is going to change this trajectory? And if so, or if not, why in the heck is Nancy Pelosi moving forward with this?

BUCK [00:10:18] Well, she’s moving forward because she’s boxed in. On the one hand, she has to satisfy her base that they’ve done everything possible to remove this president. On the other hand, she is putting her members in tough districts at risk. And by the way, the Democrats are raising a ton of money off of impeachment also. And so she did not move forward with this, their fundraising efforts would be hurt, their ability to most mobilize activists would be hurt. So this is very political.  As nothing –. I spent the plane ride back last night reading the Senate rules. And there’s nothing that says that hearsay and speculation and other things won’t come in in the Senate. Now, you’ll have Chief Justice Roberts there. You’ll have some very good attorneys, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others that will be able to bring things to the attention of the other members. But it’s really, in some ways a suicide mission for the Democrats to continue this when they know that they will be embarrassed in the United States Senate.

CORPORON [00:11:25] And especially, we see now that Mitch McConnell has cleared the entire month of January. Those are months when senators — Democrat senators who are running for president need to be on the road in Iowa and elsewhere. And so the political ramifications of this for the left just seem extraordinary. Ken, have you ever heard Nancy Pelosi talk about ‘the wrap up smear?’.

BUCK [00:11:49] I have not, no.

CORPORON [00:11:51] Let’s — are you good to stay for another segment?

BUCK [00:11:54] Sure.

CORPORON [00:11:55] Okay, all right. Let’s do this:  it’s a very short clip, I want you to listen to this, we’ll go to break, and then we’ll have a good chunk of time with you on the other side. This is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi back in 2017 I think was the date — it might have been 2016 — talking about ‘the wrap up smear.’ When you hear this —  it’s very short — but think about Brett Kavanaugh and what he went through. And think about President Donald Trump and what the Democrats are trying to put him through — and the country through — right now. ”

AUDIO RECORDING OF NANCY PELOSI [00:12:22] [playing audio clip]  “You demonize and then you  — we call it ‘the wrap up smear,’ if you want to talk politics. We call it ‘the wrap up smear.’ You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it. And then you [from the press] write it, and they’ll say, ‘See? It’s reported in the press that this, this, this, and this.’ So they have that validation that the press reported the smear, and then it’s called the wrath of smear. Now I’m going to merchandise the press’s report on the smear that we made. And it’s it’s a tactic. And it’s it’s self-evident.”

CORPORON [00:12:56] [laughing] It sure is. Why in the world–? I don’t know what she was drinking that day that would cause her to actually tell that — not just in public, but to the media. But it’s out there for all to hear. It sure fits what’s going on right now. We’ll get the take of Congressman Ken Buck when we come back. And then we’ll also put on the Colorado state GOP hat to look ahead to 2020 and what’s going on in Colorado. So, everybody, stay with us. The last segment of the special six hour edition of Wake Up! with Randy Corporon, right here on 710 KNUS.

[00:13:33] [commercial break]

CORPORON [00:13:46] [responding to the chorus of the bumper music “We’re not going to take it.”] You got that right. That’s why we are rallying on the west steps of the capitol as we speak. We will not comply. I’m doing these red flag classes. People are showing up in droves, wall to wall. And it’s going to be a very, very interesting 2020. We’ll talk to Colorado state GOP chairman Ken Buck about that in just a moment. But right now, we’re asking him to keep his Congressman Ken Buck hat on. He had not heard Nancy Pelosi talking about this very intentional tactic, very well-planned and very adequately described in this short clip, “the wrap up smear.”

AUDIO RECORDING OF NANCY PELOSI [00:14:25] [playing audio clip] You demonize and then you — we call it ‘the wrap up smear, if you want to talk politics. We call it ‘the wrap up smear.’ You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it. And then you [from the press] write it, and they’ll say, ‘See? It’s reported in the press that this, this, this, and this.’  So they have that validation that the press reported the smear and then it’s called the wrath of smear. Now I’m going to merchandise the press’s report on the smear that we made. And it’s it’s a tactic and it’s a self-evident.”

CORPORON [00:14:59] Now, of course, it’s it’s obvious if you see that whole speech that she’s talking about accusing Republicans of using this technique. And it’s a classic trick of the left to accuse and attack others for doing what they do to try and divert. Read Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals. If you haven’t, it’s not too late. Very, very important. [00:15:21]But Ken Buck, you hadn’t heard that phraseology before. It was Pelosi accusing you guys of doing that sort of thing. But what do you think when you hear something like that from the Speaker? [9.6s]

BUCK [00:15:33] [00:15:33]You know, I have to tell you, my first thought was how effective the Democrats in Colorado have been using that.  They have — you know, under the Gill umbrella they have set up a number of different organizations. And I know when I was running before, they they would start a rumor over here and then an online newspaper would — or blog — would would cover it. And then pretty soon it was in The Denver Post and people thought it was fact. And, you know, they have all these groups that sound really good, — Americans United for Taxpayer- this — and all kinds of nonsense. And I’m sure we do it also on our side. But it is certainly a tactic that the Colorado Democrats have used very effectively. [46.5s]

CORPORON [00:16:20] [00:16:20]Well, we darn well better learn to do it better, because you’re right. I mean, people who want to know what happened in Colorado then went to Virginia. That was the second state of the blueprint. That was now Governor Jared Polis, Pat Striker, Tim Gill, and Rutt Bridges bringing vast amounts of money and brainpower together with concerted strategies. And that’s part of why we find ourselves in the mess we’re in here in the state of Colorado. [22.1s] You took on– Ken Buck — the role of being the kind of state GOP with the presidential election, the reelection campaign of Cory Gardner — so important in 2020. And I can’t imagine, given your level of your success, your determination, whatever, that you’d have taken that on, to go into next year and lose.

BUCK [00:17:04] No, I’m not — I don’t have — I don’t plan on losing, I don’t think we’re going to lose. I have to tell you, I see a very energized base. I see the Democrats — the one thing you can count on Democrats doing, and they do this very effectively, is they overreach. Every time they’re in power, they overreach. The bills coming out of the US House are ridiculous. The bills that come out of the state legislature, signed by this governor are ridiculous. And we will have a lot of issues that so many in the middle of the political spectrum in Colorado find offensive. Not only did they lose on Proposition CC, my bet is that they double down and they go even further in this next legislative session and put something on the ballot next November that’s worse than CC. They just can’t help themselves. And you mentioned red flag laws. We had a sex education bill come out of the legislature. We have had so much that’s really been bad for Coloradans. And I think we’ll have a lot of good material to work with. And we have a lot of energized donors right now and a lot of energized activists. And I think we’re going to — I think we’ll do very well in Colorado in 2020.

CORPORON [00:18:17] Well, you know, listeners to this station are a skeptical bunch and we get plenty of calls, you know, “Where’s Cory, Ken” “What’s different?” ” Where are the victory offices?” all of that sort of thing. And I want to tell you, I went to Cory’s Christmas party last night — the first time in many years I’ve been invited. And let me tell you, there were women for Trump, bikers for Trump, the Trump Victory Campaign regional west director was down there. I had a great conversation with him. There were powerful women. There were young people, there were activists — Tea Party level — and other groups that I affiliate with all the time. [The] rooom was wall to wall and packed. And Cory hit all of the sweet spots in talking about just how critical this next fight is, with the push against our ability to worship where we want, if we want, when we want, the freedom of speech, the red flag, all of those kinds of things. The fight is truly for the survival of our state and our country as a constitutional republic focused on freedom. And I walked out of that party feeling very, very energized. I always have the conversations, when I get a chance to talk to you or Cory or the people that are supporting him, you know, “What are we waiting for? Look, all these ads are up, these attack ads and that sort of thing.”  And I got to tell you the answers that I get, I tend to agree with, that timing is everything and money is a finite resource. And so, I walked out of there —  especially given the the mix of coalitions and people coming together to support Cory Gardner two weeks before Christmas — that we are going to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Are we going to have the resources to set up the the victory offices that we need? Are we going to have the people on the ground and the trainings to get district captains and precinct leaders and all of those things in place? Because the Democrats maintain those structures and those organizational structures, I guess, year round.

BUCK [00:20:20] We absolutely will. And you’re absolutely right. We have not done this right in the past. There are some third party groups that are forming out there that I believe will take over after the 2020 election cycle and will — outside of the Colorado Republican Party — do what the Democrats do, and that is to fund these things. Look, the ads that are being run against Cory Gardner are not being paid for by John Hickenlooper. They’re not being paid for by Andrew Romanoff, they’re not being paid for by the Colorado Democratic Party. They are third party money –. Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg money —  that is being used to try to soften the target. And Cory is doing a great job getting around the state. And one of the things that I want to do as state party chair is to make sure that people know all the places cause going. I want to start putting on our website the great work that our state legislative candidates are doing and the great work that Cory is doing in running for office — and other offices, obviously. But yeah, we will have resources. We have seven out of eight field directors on the ground now. We’re not going to spend money, you know, buying or renting office space and, you know, signage and all those things. These are people who are working out of their home, or they’re working out of, you know, somebody has a spare office and they’re working there. But we’re keeping the costs low so that when it comes closer to the election, we have the resources to make a difference.

CORPORON [00:21:53] [I] had a text from a listener. [presumably reading from the text message] “Chuck Bonniwell talks about this all the time. When [Trimpa] is on with Chuck and Julie, what the Democrats have down, Chuck says we’ll never win as Republicans in Colorado, while this is going on with all mail ballots. They have a machine in place to harvest those ballots — you know, the ones that are in the mailboxes, tossed in the trash at apartment buildings, going into nursing homes and other places and getting people signed up and then being the man or woman to transfer those ballots. And nobody pays attention to these limits of being able to bring only 10 ballots in.”  Are we thinking about, are we focused on, will we have some resources to push back against the Democrat machine when it comes to ballot harvesting time, right at the election?

BUCK [00:22:40] Absolutely. One of the things we’ve learned in Weld County, Randy, is that the Democrats do a very good job on the campus at the University of Northern Colorado. We are working right now to set up groups and to — I mean, the groups are set up for the most part, the College Republicans are on different campuses– but really to invigorate those groups and to make sure that we also have students that are out voting. We have a great system, courtesy of the Republican National Committee, that identifies the low propensity voters that we need to get out — that came out in 2016, that we need to get out in this election. Cory Gardner will have a fantastic ground game. And we know that. And we are trying to work with him to make sure that we help that ground game, but also that we help other candidates with that ground game. So, the one thing that’s happening this year that I think people that have been around the party for years will tell, you there is absolutely no daylight between Donald Trump’s campaign, Cory Gardner’s campaign and the state Republican Party. We are housed together. We talk every day. Anytime someone says to me, “I want to go do this,” my first answer to them is, “Make sure that the Trump campaign in the Gardner campaign are okay with it before we move down with a new initiative. So I think we have the strategy and resources to be very effective in 2020.

CORPORON [00:24:10] All right. Well, Congressman Ken Buck, Colorado state GOP Chairman Ken Buck, I walked away from that party last night and seen [sic] the closeness of all these different groups, including Cory and the Trump victory folks, walked away with a great deal of confidence. And it’s really good to hear your voice today. Thanks for your time. And we’ll have you back on before the holidays, but just in case, Merry Christmas to you and your family.

BUCK [00:24:35] Thanks. You also, Randy.

CORPORON [00:24:37] Thank you. All right. God bless you.