Gail Fallen Show, Ken Buck, December 19, 2019
Station: KFKA, 1310 am
Show: Gail Fallen Show
Guests: Buck, Ken
Date: December 19, 2019
Topics: Impeachment hearing, Jonathan Turley, The Swamp, Progressives in Congress, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Articles of Impeachment, Lowering the Bar, Past Presidents, Deep State Bureaucrats, Job Security, Pay Raises, Benefits for Career Professionals in the Executive Branch, Phone Call, Ukraine President
HOST GAIL FALLEN [00:00:04] [I am] joined this morning by member — a member of the House Judiciary Committee, [a] very active participant in the inquiry and of course in yesterday’s events in the House, Congressman Ken Buck. Congressman Buck, welcome to the show.
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (CO-O4) AND CHAIRMAN OF THE COLORADO GOP, KEN BUCK [00:00:22] Thank you, Gail. It is good to be with you.
FALLEN [00:00:24] Uh, [it is a] very sad day today, because I can’t help but think — of course, I love what Drew Ferguson called it, your House colleague, he called it a ‘flippin’ goat rodeo.’ [You have] got to love that! But unfortunately, I think all that we accomplished yesterday is weakening the process, weakening the Constitution and weakening Congress and turning impeachment into a political joke. How about you?
BUCK [00:00:50] Yeah, I agree with much of that. I think that we have lowered the bar to such an extent that just about any president in the history of the United States could have been impeached. And the relationship between a president and the House will change as a result of this. And it’s not a good change. There are tensions between the two branches of government, and that’s how the founders intended it. One branch checks the other branch’s ambitions. And to have — and the other thing, Gail, that was really scary about this whole process is that there really is a deep state. There is this group of bureaucrats that think they run the government and that Congress and the president, whether they’re elected or not, should answer to this group of bureaucrats. And they — you know — fought against President Trump’s trying to reform government and trying to change the balance between the appointees in the in the executive branch and the career bureaucrats. And they won! That is the only winner of this whole–. The Democrats didn’t win. They’ll learn that next November. The Republicans didn’t win. The president didn’t win. Congress didn’t win. The only winners in this are the bureaucrats. And I can tell you, as a member of Congress who is a fiscal conservative, I will look very hard and carefully at pay raises for federal employees. I will look very hard and carefully at other benefits and job security that the senior bureaucrats have in Congress — [correcting himself] oh, I’m sorry, in the executive branch.
FALLEN [00:02:43] The founders were very concerned about impeachment being wielded as a partisan political weapon. And I can’t help but think that’s exactly what we’re seeing here. In fact, the only bipartisanship we saw in this entire process was in opposition to the articles of impeachment. And again, it’s just of such concern because, should impeachment be used — and I think this is probably rhetorical — but should impeachment be used to resolve policy differences?
BUCK [00:03:17] Well, this goes beyond policy differences. There was — you know, I think that the right thing for the president to have done would have been to ask the attorney general to reach out to the attorney general of the Ukraine and say, “We’re concerned about Burisma. We’re concerned about this conduct,” and not to go from a head-of-state to head-of-state call. That is not impeachable. Certainly, the president has every right to be concerned about corruption in a foreign country that we’re giving a very large amount of aid to. And so, it wasn’t impeachable conduct. And I think it was really something where the Democrats connected some dots that didn’t necessarily deserve to be connected, because, frankly, the the withholding of aid in the minds of most of the participants in this phone call and the listeners to the phone call, just — that connection wasn’t made.
FALLEN [00:04:21] Do you believe that Ukraine did meddle in the 2016 elections?
BUCK [00:04:27] Absolutely! You know, I’ve been asking what –. I keep getting this pushback from the Democrats and a lot of the liberal media about, you know, that’s just something that the Russians have invented. They did. They did interfere. They didn’t interfere to the extent that the Russians did. They didn’t interfere in an effective way. But many of the senior government officials in the Ukraine made pro-Hillary Clinton statements and anti-Donald Trump statements. Many of the people who had left government but had influence over government did the same thing. They clearly thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win and they wanted to create a relationship with her that would be beneficial. So they clearly interfered. Now, I don’t know that anybody in the U.S. would say, “I changed my vote because some political official in the Ukraine made a statement that, you know, Donald Trump wasn’t prepared for this office.” I don’t think that happened. But I do think that they made inappropriate statements and tried to influence our election.
FALLEN [00:05:29] Senator Mitch McConnell [is] this morning saying that this impeachment was the predetermined end of a partisan crusade. And that’s what it boils down to, is that Democrats detest — not all, but most — detest President Donald Trump. They despise him and used impeachment as — once again –a weapon in order to, well, somehow get revenge for the 2016 election.
BUCK [00:06:01] I believe that’s true, and I am writing a book at this point about the progressives in Congress. And from the day — even before the president was sworn in, but certainly from the time he was sworn in, all you hear around this place is impeachment, impeachment, impeachment. Articles of impeachment had hit the floor. Sixteen or 17 members of the Judiciary Committee had voted for articles of impeachment on the floor before this telephone call ever happened. People were — you know, that The Washington Post headline the day after the inauguration was “Let the Impeachment Begin.” This is no secret. They were looking to impeach the president and they’re just looking for an excuse.
FALLEN [00:06:46] What are the consequences of this action?
BUCK [00:06:50] Well, the consequence is that that it will be easier in the future to impeach a president and point to historical precedent and say, you know, “He — this president didn’t turn over documents that we wanted, therefore we’re impeaching him. This president abused his power by having a phone call with a foreign leader about a domestic rival, and therefore we are impeaching him.” And I think it will happen, unfortunately, with Republicans in the House and a Democrat president. It will happen again with Democrats in the House and a Republican president. I didn’t join in previous impeachment attempts on individuals in the Obama administration. I haven’t signed up for censure motions on Democrat congressmen, because I think those are really stringent sanctions that should be used very carefully. And this impeachment — I think that — and part of the problem we have here, Gail, is there’s a large turnover in Congress. And so a lot of people don’t have historical and really constitutional context for these issues.
FALLEN [00:08:12] Right.
BUCK [00:08:12] Nancy Pelosi does. Maxine Waters does. There’s no excuse for the people that have been here a while and understand what the relationship is between the two branches. But I would guess that about two-thirds of the members of Congress have less than six years experience in this place.
FALLEN [00:08:28] Mark Meadows announcing that he will not seek reelection, I found that very interesting as well. But so, as we look forward and, well, just kind of soak all this in — the implications of this –I find it rather ironic. Though the president will have an asterisk by his name, ironically enough, it seems as though this could be a boost to his reelection prospects.
BUCK [00:08:57] I think that Americans see what the media and the Democrat Party have been doing for the last two-and-a-half years very clearly now that this has happened. I think that people really have context to put all of these things in order. And I think that the election — I think the president’s chances of winning in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan has improved as a result of how unfairly he has been treated. And it’s the opposite of what the Democrats were hoping for. They obviously have had great success fundraising with their base as a result of this. But they will –they will pay a dear price, especially those Democrats who sit in seats that were won in the past by Donald Trump and will be won again by Donald Trump.
FALLEN [00:09:50] Eight-forty-eight, now, [this is] 1310 [a.m.], KFKA [and] 1310KFKA-dot-com. [I am] joined this morning by Congressman Ken Buck. Now, I loved your tenacity throughout this entire process. I don’t know that I could have stomach-ed it as long as you did. I made every effort to watch as much of that as I could. But I thought your points that you made as you testified, talking about how the Democrats have lowered the bar of impeachment that would put many past presidents at risk, I just thought your points as you were testifying — talking with Jonathan Turley — were very well taken, because Abraham Lincoln could have been impeached.
BUCK [00:10:36] Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson could have been impeached 100 times. It’s amazing the hypocrisy that goes on around this place. President Obama — I can remember going to Tea Party rallies and, you know, people screaming at me, “How come you’re not impeaching President Obama?!” Well, this is what you get when you lower the bar. This is what you get. And this is what the Democrats are going to get down the road. But we have to put the brakes on this kind of behavior. But, yes, Jonathan Turley said — after I went through a number of examples, Jonathan Turley said he didn’t think that any president could survive the standard that the Democrats are setting where they have put the bar right now.
FALLEN [00:11:21] Well, and I have to admit, Congressman Buck, I agree with your sentiments on Robert DeNiro. [laughs diabolically]
BUCK [00:11:28] Yeah!
FALLEN [00:11:29] God love it. Sir, thank you — thank you so much for your time. Thank you for continuing to be a strong conservative voice. [I] certainly do appreciate it.
BUCK [00:11:39] [I] appreciate that, Gail, and you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
FALLEN [00:11:42] And Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to you, as well.
