Dan Caplis Show, Ken Buck, December 03, 2019
Station: KNUS, 710 am
Show: Dan Caplis Show
Guests: Buck, Ken
Date: December 3, 2019
Topics: Impeachment hearings, Law Professors, Judiciary Committee, Intelligence Committee Report, Lie Under Oath, Nixon Impeachment, Burglary, Watergate, Clinton Impreachment, Perjury, Sexual Predator, Jonathan Turley, George Washington Law School, Judge Napolitano, Rule of Law, Rules of Evidence, The United States Mexico Canada Trade Agreement, Immigration, Legalizing Marijuana, Scheduled Substance, Political theater, Hearsay, President of Ukraine
HOST DAN CAPLIS [00:00:00] Let’s go to the VIP line, grateful to have the time with Representative Ken Buck, congressman from Colorado, obviously, who is on the Judiciary Committee. My friend, can you stop licking your chops long enough to talk to us for a couple of minutes?
U.S. RERPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO’S FOURTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE COLORADO GOP, KEN BUCK\ [00:00:13] Absolutely. I think it’s going to be an interesting hearing tomorrow, I have to tell you. I think that the Democrats — first of all, the Republicans did the same thing during the Clinton impeachment hearings. It’s not unusual to bring in experts. But the Republicans brought in a total of 15 different law professors. They got different views. They gave the Democrats more than one witness in terms of having this this wide range of opinions. What the Democrats have done is — and by the– we didn’t know until yesterday afternoon who the witnesses were going to be for the Democrats. Today, they released the report from the Intelligence Committee telling us what the facts are that they’re basing this impeachment on. It is it is just a — it’s a zoo. The procedural zoo continues. It really is a messed up process.
CAPLIS [00:01:05] Well, and I can ask you, if you would, Congressman, to help break down the “facts” — quote/unquote — the Democrats are claiming. But if we may start with the precedent in Clinton, if I recall correctly — and I know you know more about this than I do — but if I recall correctly, the GOP was bringing in all of these law professors because you had this obvious screaming, glaring violation. You had Clinton violating his oath, lying under oath. And as I recall, and I may be wrong, I think a lot of that testimony was, “Hey, this is why the oath is so important,” i.e. the whole system false parked if people feel like they can lie under oath. But I mean, what do you think the Democrats, Congressman, intend to accomplish tomorrow with these law professors?
BUCK [00:01:52] Well, first of all, I think you’re right. When you look at the Nixon impeachment –and there was no formal impeachment because there wasn’t a vote on it. He resigned before that. But there was a burglary. There was a crime. There was a cover up of that crime. And then the Clinton impeachment, you had a crime. You had a perjury, a lying under oath. And frankly, you had a — with President Clinton — you had a history of sexual predator behavior that led up to the lying under oath and somebody that had gotten away with this disgusting behavior for years. So there were– there really is apples and oranges compared to what what is going on now. But I don’t know what they what they hope to accomplish with the hearing tomorrow, frankly.
CAPLIS [00:02:42] And what do you hope to accomplish? Because we know your skills, legal and otherwise, but you’re stuck with these really awful time limitations. So what can you accomplish in the time you’re given?
BUCK [00:02:55] That’s a great point, Dan. We have five minutes of questions and you really can’t ask a witness a question during that five minutes because they all know the game. And if they give a four minute and 59 second answer, it’s over. You don’t get to make any points. And so it’s really a series of five minute speeches. And then at the end of the five minute speech, the chairman is required to allow the witness to answer the question. And so you’re going to see a lot of Republicans who are prepared to talk about the majority report — [the] Democrat report that came out today — and pick apart certain parts of that report. My background as a prosecutor, I’m looking at the the elements of bribery and I’m focusing on that tomorrow and showing how no prosecutor in the world would bring this case in a courtroom. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not — according to them, according to the Democrats — it’s not impeachable. There still is the possibility that there is impeachable conduct that has not been codified in law as a crime. But when they keep using the word bribery, I’m going to the federal bribery statute and I’m going to be talking about that in my five minutes. Jonathan Turley, who is a very well-known law professor, he happens to be a Democrat, but he is our witness, the Republican witness, I think he is at George Washington Law School, and he will be coming in tomorrow and giving his testimony on behalf of the Republicans.
CAPLIS [00:04:32] Congressman Ken Buck, our special guest. Congressman, do you think the White House made the right decision, not getting involved in the hearing tomorrow, not sending counsel, for example?
BUCK [00:04:42] I do, and I said this yesterday on Fox News and Judge Napolitano disagreed with me on this, but I still feel strongly that this is not an evidentiary hearing. And it is not a hearing that is conducted under the rule of law. This is a political hearing. It is not going to bring out any new facts. There is no opportunity for White House counsel to cross-examine a witness or, you know, to highlight the fact that there is hearsay or speculation or some other violation of the rules of evidence. This is a political theater. And the the participation by the White House would lend credibility to the political theater and the president would gain nothing.
CAPLIS [00:05:30] And when is the last time Napolitano was right about anything, truly? I mean, I don’t even know why Fox gives him oxygen.
BUCK [00:05:37] [unintelligible].
CAPLIS [00:05:37] Yeah, right, because, I mean, isn’t this the way it came down? I don’t want to digress at your time so valuable. But in 10 seconds or less, the guy got caught doing something — I don’t remember all the details — wildly pro Trump where he was way off base and he spent the entire time since, you know, trying to be the most vocal critic of the president to try to get some credibility back with the left. But I just can’t remember him being right since then.
BUCK [00:06:02] You know, I certainly don’t think he’s right on the issues that we talked about yesterday. And one of them was participation by the White House Council. He was saying, “Well, why shouldn’t they participate?” Well, there’s a lot of reasons. They gain nothing and they lose a lot by participating at this stage. Obviously, if the House impeaches — and that is, charges this case — and it goes to the Senate for a trial, then, of course, the president participates. The president’s counsel, cross-examines witnesses. All of that is appropriate at that point in time.
CAPLIS [00:06:35] At this point, what are the odds that there will be an impeachment? I know it’s just assumed that there will be. But you’re there. You’re on the ground. What do you think?
BUCK [00:06:43] I have to tell you, I think the Dems have backed themselves in a corner. I think they are — there is no good political way out without some kind of vote. Now, if they lose the votes from the moderate Dems, they may go to a censure vote and just censure the president and then it’s done. But I think a lot of people, frankly, right now are getting upset that the country, that Congress is not conducting the business that needs to be conducted. The United States Mexico Canada trade agreement isn’t being passed. Spending bills that could cut spending, and at least in my view, they probably won’t with the Democrats in charge. But there are things that could happen that would be beneficial to the country. We need to have a strong debate on immigration. We frankly need to have a debate on marijuana. More and more states are legalizing marijuana. The federal government has done nothing. It is still a scheduled substance and the federal government needs to take some kind of leadership role. So, I could name a dozen issues where the the need for action is immediate. And yet we have very little going on in Congress other than this political theater.
CAPLIS [00:07:56] And grateful for your time today and in wrapping it today, can you give people a little bit of a preview of what point you’re going to be making tomorrow on the bribery issue?
BUCK [00:08:07] Sure. Well, the statute requires various elements, and I still have to do some reading tonight, so I don’t want to get into too much detail.
CAPLIS [00:08:17] Sure.
BUCK [00:08:17] And I don’t want to tip my hand, but I will be going into the facts as laid out in the Democrat case. It’s interesting to me, if a prosecutor — when I was a district attorney or chief of criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, if a prosecutor brought a report into me and said, “This is why we should prosecute,” and didn’t analyze the elements and the facts — in other words, the law and the facts — I would look at the prosecutor and say, “Get out of my office and go do your job!” And this report has nothing about what is necessary to convict. All it does is say, “Here are some bad acts.” Most of them are based on hearsay. Most of this is speculation. We have none of the actual participants who are at the table making these comments. And in fact, the president of Ukraine has said the exact opposite. He has said, “I wasn’t influenced by this phone call. I didn’t consider this pressure.” And so it really is a issue of applying the law to the facts. And that’s what I’m going to be doing tomorrow.
CAPLIS [00:09:21] Yeah, and it seems to me– Congressman Ken Buck, our guest — it seems to me that when we get to the point in America where a politician taken an official action for in part personal political gain becomes bribery, becomes abuse of power, at that point, we’re not going to be able to build enough jails. I mean, so — and one thing I’d like to discuss when you have more time after tomorrow — we’d be grateful to do a debrief with you — is, wait a second! Even if this was a quid pro quo, and I know the president is absolutely adamant it was not. But even if it was, would there be anything criminal about that? Anything impeachable about that?
BUCK [00:10:03] Well, it’s a good question. There are — when you ask a hypothetical like that, there are so many possible avenues to go down to to try to figure out. But this — what we do know about the facts, in my opinion, this is not impeachable conduct. And I think that more and more people in the public, more and more citizens realize that. And it’s why the Democrats are in a corner right now, because they think they aren’t getting the poll numbers they expected. And they’re in complete control of the narrative in the House. When it goes to the Senate, they have no control over [unintelligible].
CAPLIS [00:10:38] Cannot wait.
BUCK [00:10:38] And at that point, they really have a problem.
CAPLIS [00:10:41] Cannot wait. [I am] grateful for the time today. Glad you’re on that Judiciary Committee. Those are hard seats to get. I’m glad you have one of them. And [I] look forward to talking after tomorrow.
BUCK [00:10:50] Thank you very much, Dan.
